Thy Brother's Wife

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “Jane took me away from her.”

  “She had to, Sean. Mary Eileen tried to kill you. I had to bring Jane into the house to watch you. There was no one else I could trust.” Mike was begging for sympathy.

  “And you never visited her, not once since 1934.”

  “That’s not true, Sean.” Mike pressed knotted fingers against his forehead. “I went many times in the first years, even the day I left to go overseas in 1942. She never knew me, thought I was her father. It didn’t do her any good, and it hurt me terribly. Can’t you believe that I hurt too?”

  “You miserable bastard!” Sean pulled his father out of the easy chair in which he had been sitting and shook him as though he were a rag doll. “I hope to hell I’m not your son!”

  He threw his father back into the chair and stomped out of the apartment.

  A few minutes later, when the sub-zero cold on Delaware Place stung at his face, Sean began to feel the guilt that Nora had predicted. He found a dime in his pocket and went into a phone booth to call his brother.

  * * *

  Sean waited for Paul in the vast Red Carpet Room above the United Airlines gates at O’Hare. Paul had told him on the telephone that this half hour before his flight back to Washington was the only time he could see him.

  Sean glanced around at the executives who swarmed into the room, like sleek bees to a honeycomb of gold.

  Paul arrived late, rushing breathlessly up the escalator, although not so quickly as to miss the opportunity to scan the room for possible constituents or cronies.

  “Nora seems to be bouncing back pretty well,” Paul said, toasting his brother with a vodka and tonic. “It’s been a lot worse on her than on me. She’d been with Mickey all the time. I hardly got to know the poor little fellow.”

  “Our mother is still alive, Paul.”

  The vodka and tonic rested a moment at Paul’s lips, and his darting gray eyes froze. “What? You’d better tell me all about it,” he said softly and lowered the glass.

  Sean told him all about it, except for the part about Nora’s discovering “Mary” and then hiding her discovery for over a year. And he did not mention Father Terry O’Connor. When he finished, Paul’s face was slack and pale. His fingers drummed convulsively on the arm of the plush beige sofa on which he was sitting. “My God,” he said.

  Sean waited, sensing that his brother was groping for an appropriate reaction. Outside, a huge 747 nosed into a jetway, its wide body gleaming silver.

  “From what you say, she would have been in a home all this time anyway,” Paul said. “Still, why did the old man…?”

  “The disgrace, damn it!” Sean snapped. “The disgrace of the mother of his sons being mad.”

  Paul shook his head. “Yeah, but … you know, he really believes that stuff about bad blood.”

  “Sure he does. And how could he make one son president and the other a cardinal if the world knew they had a mother who’s mad? Hell, they probably would have thrown me out of the seminary if they thought there was insanity in the family.”

  Paul moved his empty glass around the surface of the coffee table. “Still, it’s a damn fool stupid thing to do.”

  Sean’s anger came flooding back. “Worse than stupid. He’s the one that’s the lunatic.”

  “I suppose so,” Paul agreed. “He meant well.…”

  “Do I have to tell you what the streets of Hell are paved with?” Sean retorted.

  “I don’t know what to say, Sean. I’ve got to sleep on this, figure it out, put some meaning to it. You aren’t going to go public with it, are you?”

  “No point in that, is there? Not now.”

  “No.” Paul’s relief was obvious. “I guess not.” He reached for his hand-tooled leather attaché case and struggled out of the sofa. “I’ve got to catch that plane now. You don’t mind?”

  “You’ll visit her the next time you’re home? She won’t know you, but—”

  “Sure I will. It will take some getting used to, though.” Paul seized on the promise. “Next time I’m in town.”

  As he watched his handsome brother walk out of the lounge, Sean knew that Paul would never set eyes on Mary Eileen Cronin.

  * * *

  For hours, Mike huddled in his chair, watching the lights of the city, unable to react to what had happened. Sean had discovered his secret. How didn’t matter. Mike always knew that he would one day, one way or another.

  He was still shaking from the terror of the confrontation. Good God, a man tried, he made mistakes, he did his best. No one ever understood, they never tried to understand. What the hell was he supposed to do? Let her kill the little kid? Even if he wasn’t my son—and I suppose that he wasn’t—I had to protect him. No gratitude, none at all. He doesn’t realize how much I gave up.

  Maybe I ought to call Elizabeth. She’s the only one who came close.… No, I can’t call her. She’s married now. I gave that up too.

  The lights of the Loop flickered on and off. A sharp stab of pain cut through Mike Cronin’s head.

  Then the lights of the Loop went out completely.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  1973

  “Play it again, Sam,” Bishop Sean Cronin ordered Monsignor James McGuire.

  Jimmy managed an unusually wan smile. “I hadn’t noticed your resemblance to Bogart until now, boss, but there is a similarity—around the mouth and teeth, if you get what I mean.”

  “Play it.” Sean was in an unusually good mood, in part because he had found something that upset his normally unflappable second-in-command. Jimmy pushed the button on the tape player. The television screen came alive and Sean saw himself, calm and cool, with a touch of gray at his temples. His pale hair was too long, his suit was rumpled, and if one looked closely one could see that his shoes weren’t polished. “Lovemaking between a man and woman,” the person on the screen was saying, “can mean many different things. Through lovemaking, lovers forgive one another, show their gratitude to one another, declare their love, renew their vows, chase their anxieties and their anger, reestablish communication, make life livable for one another, challenge, stimulate, excite, and reassure one another. Also, of course, it is the means for continuing the human race.”

  The pious Jesuit who shared the panel with Sean was outraged. “Even if you are a bishop, I must be frank, Your Excellency. Those are tasteless, vulgar words.”

  “Really, Father? It had been my understanding that it’s precisely all those complex dimensions of marriage and love that led St. Paul to call it a great sacrament.”

  “You’re a celibate, aren’t you?” the Jesuit asked with a hint of a smirk. “How would a celibate know these things?”

  “I try to keep my vows, yes.” A slight frown marred the Vicar General’s handsome face. “I do counseling every evening in the cathedral rectory, I hear confessions on weekends, I have friends and family, and I am a male member of the human race with the usual male reactions … that’s how I know.”

  The Jesuit exploded. “Bishop, those are scandalous things you’re saying!”

  “Scandalous for a bishop to be a member of the human race?”

  Jimmy pushed the stop button on the video recorder.

  “So that’s what all the cardinals in the United States, except for Eamon, want to censure me for? Jimmy, they’re full of baloney.”

  “My information is that they won’t go after you by name. They’ll simply pass a general resolution recommending that bishops not talk about intimate human relationships on radio or television programs. It’s a way of getting at you and, of course, getting at Eamon too. They know he won’t be at the November meeting because he’s still recuperating from his heart attack. You’ve got to fight for his sake as well as your own.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Jimmy.” Sean was as relaxed as he had been on the television screen. “Eamon’s quite capable of conspiring against them himself, if he wants to, and he thinks he knows better than to try to save me from my own folly. Forget it.
It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

  “Sean, it will destroy you. You’ll be finished in the American Church.”

  Sean shrugged and rose from his chair in the chancellor’s office. “How many times do I have to tell you, Jimmy, I don’t care about my future in the American Church?”

  “What do you care about, Sean? You work here all day and then half the night at the cathedral rectory. You hear confessions Saturday afternoon and evening. You say two Masses on Sunday. You don’t take a day off. You’re in Washington or Rome at least once a month. You don’t even see your brother or Nora and the kids. What do you care about?”

  Sean put his hands in his pockets. “I’m not sure, Jimmy. If I ever find out I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’ve got to go deal with Father Camillo of the Soldiers of Christ. I’ll at least have a little fun bouncing that so-and-so from the diocese.”

  “If I had a sister like Nora, I’d visit her,” Jimmy said firmly.

  “I’m sure you would, Jimmy, I’m sure you would.”

  * * *

  Father Camillo had the manner and voice of a Spanish aristocrat and the looks to match, a face out of El Greco, tan skin, liquid brown eyes. Moreover, he had the worldwide power of the Soldiers of Christ behind him, a secret international Catholic society made up of priests and laity, modeled to some extent after the Communist Party with small cells and a strategy of infiltrating elite groups in critical social positions. He had begun the conversation in Sean’s office by trying to intimidate the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Chicago, as though the latter were something of a peasant.

  He didn’t get very far. Sean cut him off and flipped open a manila folder. “Let’s see, Father Camillo, we have three reports of your group infiltrating young people’s organizations in parishes of the archdiocese. One of the priests whose group was infiltrated sent a young woman who could speak Spanish to a meeting where you and your colleagues were present. She overheard some very interesting conversations, Father, the sort of things that one would expect from a Communist infiltrating a union, but hardly from a priest in an organization concerned about spiritual values and guidance.”

  Camillo raised his hand in protest. “But I am sure she exaggerated—”

  “And then we have protests from five husbands whose wives joined your organization. Apparently they won’t sleep with their men without permission from their spiritual guide, who, in a number of cases, seems to be you, Father Camillo.”

  “Slander!”

  “Perhaps, Father, perhaps. Then there are a number of women who have also protested because, once their husbands became part of your group, they insisted that the wife kneel and ask for their blessing before she left the house. They also claimed the right to make all decisions of the family. That doesn’t work with Irishwomen, Father. A cultural difference between them and the Spanish, I suppose.”

  “The husband is the head of the home,” Camillo insisted.

  “Just barely, especially if he’s Irish. Now let’s see. Oh, yes. We have records of four young women who ended up in the hospital because they had scourged themselves rather too severely at the recommendation of their spiritual guide. Then there are parents who report their children are spying on them, pastors who find that their curates have hidden tape recorders in their offices and listened to their conversations, and faculty members at a Catholic university here who think they were denied tenure because of your group’s conniving. We also have several copies of your confidential magazine, which, in effect, repudiates the Second Vatican Council. All in all, a very interesting dossier, Father Camillo.”

  The Spaniard’s thin lips were white with rage. “You have no right to sit in judgment on what we do, Monsignor.”

  “Now, there you are wrong, Father Camillo. I am the Vicar General of this archdiocese, and I have the right to revoke your permission to continue to work in this archdiocese. And I am doing so. Here is a copy of a letter; the original will be put in the mail this afternoon, and you will note that I am sending a copy to the Apostolic Delegate and to the Sacred Congregation of the Clergy in Rome. I’m sure you may appeal if you want, but to tell you the truth, I doubt that it will work because if you persist in your appeal these materials may be leaked to the press with very considerable negative effect on your work around the country.”

  “I demand to see the Cardinal.”

  “No one is going to see the Cardinal for several weeks, Father Camillo. He is recovering from his heart attack, but he is not receiving visitors. I can assure you that His Eminence has given his full approval to this decision.”

  “You yourself are also subject to judgment,” snarled the Soldier of Christ.

  “Ah, yes, indeed. And I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you and your friends have something to do with the kangaroo court that’s going to sit in judgment on me in November. To tell you the truth, Father Camillo, I don’t care what you or they say. Whenever the Cardinal Archbishop wants my resignation, he can have it, as he well knows. Nonetheless, as long as I am his Vicar General, I will carry out his wishes. And I assure you, Father Camillo, it is his wish that you and your community leave this diocese within the month. If you have not departed then, we will be forced to take canonical action. And, incidentally, there are also ways to make things difficult for you civilly. We do have a holdover from Old Spain, you know. The civil authorities occasionally cooperate with us. I bet that place of yours in Hyde Park is violating all kinds of zoning regulations.”

  The Spaniard was trembling with rage as he stood up. “You will regret this, Monsignor. You will regret this as long as you live.”

  “Get out,” Sean said. He slammed the folder shut and stood his full six feet one inch. “Get out before I lose my patience.”

  Father Camillo got out.

  Sean checked his calendar to see what other appointments were written in. He was weary and depressed, a weariness that sleep could not cure and a depression that nothing exorcised. He was going through the motions, doing what a priest should do, trying to be what a bishop should be. His self-esteem and self-confidence were shattered, his faith still weak, and his hope, at best, paper thin.

  Where was the Holy Spirit in his life?

  * * *

  The following Saturday, after Mass and before confessions, Sean went to visit the sick. First of all, a visit to the Cardinal at his house on North State Parkway.

  Eamon McCarthy, thinner, paler, and old, was relaxing on the couch on the second floor, studying the overseas edition of L’Osservatore Romano. “You look much better than you did a week ago, Eminence.” Sean wondered if the magnificent old man would ever look himself again.

  “Very good of you to say so, Bishop Cronin. I’m feeling much better. If it were not for the doctor’s instructions, I would come down Monday and relieve you of your many administrative burdens.” The smile, quick and mocking, had not changed a bit.

  “You’d have a hard time finding the chancery office, Eminence. We’ve moved it across the street. But I’m sure Monsignor McGuire would be happy to let you use his office.”

  “Yes, of course. I knew I could count on you to leave me at least a cubbyhole somewhere or other. Any serious problems this week … the kind you could tell me about without violating the doctor’s orders to protect me from my own sense of responsibility?”

  “Just two, Eminence.” Sean hesitated, then continued. “I ordered the Soldiers of Christ out. Father Camillo was something less than cooperative. I assume he will appeal to the Apostolic Delegate, who, as you know, is no friend of yours.”

  “Nor a friend of yours, I might add, Bishop Cronin. But then we both know the Apostolic Delegate would not dare to overrule a Cardinal. No, I’m afraid that Father Camillo will have to take his white Freemasons somewhere else and the Archdiocese of Chicago will be spared them in the future. And I can tell from the look on your face that there is something else and you are debating whether you should tell it to me or not. You’d better tell me, Bishop.”
r />   “Jimmy has learned from one of his canon law friends that there’s a movement under way to censure me at the bishops’ meeting in November. The resolution will be introduced by all the cardinals—all but yourself, of course—and will not mention me explicitly but will rather lament the fact that certain bishops have said imprudent things about marital intimacy on television and urge that such things do not happen again.”

  Eamon McCarthy smoothed the few strands of hair still left on the top of his head. “And it is, of course,” the Cardinal said thoughtfully, “a way of punishing me for tolerating you.”

  “As to that, Eminence, it is a punishment richly deserved.”

  “Doubtless. And I presume, being who you are, you intend to ignore the whole thing until after it’s over, at which time you will tell the gentlemen of the press that you would say exactly the same thing on television all over again if the circumstances permitted?”

  “You know me very well, don’t you, Eminence?”

  “Too well, Bishop Cronin, too well. Certainly so well that I will not attempt to dissuade you from your course of action. In truth, I would be somewhat disappointed if you told me you were going to do anything else, given the fact that every new foolish thing you do brings you one step closer to becoming my successor. I would imagine this particular incident will absolutely guarantee that you will be the next Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago.”

  “My father would be happy to hear that, Eminence.”

  “Yes, doubtless. Well, Bishop Cronin, you need not trouble yourself on my account. I will follow my doctor’s orders and refuse to worry about your fate next month at the bishops’ meeting.”

  But of course he would. There was not the slightest doubt in Sean’s mind about that.