“I’m on no one’s side, Jane. I don’t think it’s a question of sides.”
It was mid-September, a dull rainy day with a chill northeast wind blowing across our suburb.
“You don’t see, not even a little, that it might be terrible from my viewpoint.”
“Leo is a hero, Jane. We both know that he behaves heroically under sudden pressure and backs off when he has a chance to reflect. This time he was deliberately a hero after reflection.”
A wave of raw physical hunger for her rushed through my body.
“How is it heroic to ruin a whole family?”
“He risked everything to free a whole family.”
The force of the hunger passed, but my hands were trembling. I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands to keep them where they should be.
“I don’t need any big, brave male hero charging into my life to free me from anything. I can take care of myself. I have for a long time and I intend to continue to do so.”
My heart sank. Such jumping from anger to anger, hurt to hurt, from subject to subject almost always reveals a deeper rage that the person will not face.
“We all need help and protection, Jane,” I sighed. “All of us are dependent.”
“I will not be dependent on him.”
“It’s your right to make that judgment.”
“And I’ve made it. You were there, you saw what it did to my children, to my brothers and their wives. I’m not defending my brothers. But couldn’t he have told me privately and them too? They would never have done anything again. Why the big show?”
“If you can’t see that, Jane, I’m sure I can’t explain it…I put it to you that you’re the only one who is angry at him. Your daughter, your son, your brothers and sisters-in-law rather admire what he did. They’re free now of the past, at least free enough that they can leave it behind them. I don’t see why you cling to it.”
In saying that I did see why.
“I hate him,” she shouted at me. “I hate him!”
“No, Jane, you don’t hate him,” I sighed wearily. “You hate your mother. As long as you hate her, you are a prisoner of your own anger. You’re not angry at poor Lee whom you love very much. You’re angry at her and yourself. It’s not him you must forgive. It’s Ita and Jane. Abandon your anger at your mother and forgive her, that you’ll finally be free of the rage that has eaten at your soul all these years. Maybe you’ll then be able to forgive yourself or, even better, listen to Lee when he tells you that you have been long since forgiven.”
“A lot you know,” she sobbed and ran out of my rectory office.
All right, Patrick T. Keenan, you scored a direct hit. Maggie couldn’t have done any better.
Exhausted by my bout of passion and our argument, I watched her run out to her Mercedes, the replacement for the one that Lucianne had totaled, oblivious to the pounding rain.
I didn’t like to argue with women. Any man who desired to play the role of a lover to Jane would have to get used to arguments with her. Or like Leo, he would have to enjoy them. Funny I had never thought of that before. Arguments before passion, arguments after passion. Maybe, God knows, even during passion.
What would she do now?
She was an intelligent woman, very intelligent. But intelligence is no help when you’ve surrounded yourself with impermeable armor, in this case an armor of self-loathing.
Maybe love would do it. Maybe.
Or sexual hunger. How clever of God to link the latter two.
All her other lover could do at this point was hope.
And pray.
And commit her to the care of the appropriate angels.
I was exhausted by the conversation. I had been true to my friendship with Leo and my confidant relationship with Jane. I had been a good priest and a good friend.
Had I lost Jane forever?
Well, so be it.
The next afternoon, she called me.
“I’m sorry, Packy. I was a jerk. Sorry to unload my anger and confusion on you.”
“That’s what priests are for, Jane.”
“You’ve always been a good priest for me. You’re not a man who possesses the priesthood but a man possessed by it.”
“That’s high praise,” I said slowly.
“If I do manage to straighten things out with Lunkhead, you’ll still be my priest?”
“Sure will.”
“Mine just a tad more than his?”
“A tiny tad.”
We both laughed.
“One more thing, Jane,” I said before she hung up. “I hear that your annulment will come through no later than the first week in October.”
“Oh,” she said.
And there the conversation ended.
I thought for a long time before I took my hand off the phone. Like Lucianne I had been a terminal asshole. Of course I was possessed by the priesthood. It was my whole life. I could no more not be a priest than I could not breathe. My fantasy romance with Jane was folly. Comic folly at that, I grinned.
The three of us would be good friends for the rest of our lives. That was better than a marriage between two utterly incompatible people who would never forgive one another for the dream of the priesthood they had blighted.
Jane needed someone as crazy as Leo. And I did not need someone as manic as Jane. I’d made a fool out of myself.
But, fortunately, only in my head.
I put on my sweatsuit and wandered over to the basketball courts where the young priest was playing with teenagers.
“Make room guys,” he instructed the kids. “The old pro is coming out of retirement.”
“I can still beat the young rookie at twenty-one.”
“Boss,” he whispered, “you look great, like a huge burden has been lifted off your shoulders. You’re smiling again.”
“Has it been a long time?”
“A real long time.”
“It takes a while to realize that you’re possessed by the priesthood.”
“Gee, with you it’s clear every day.”
“The new me might be permanent.”
“It will mean a lot of work for the rest of us. But how come the change?”
“Two friends who will keep me smiling.”
“New friends?”
“No. Old ones. From long ago.”
Jane
The memoir is finished at last. Now I’ll have to begin the novel. Would he be the hero or the villain?
Silly question, he was the hero and I’m the stupid little shit.
That Sunday night you should have walked down the road, said a prayer for Jimmy and Eileen by the tree, and fallen on your knees. In front of him. Not in regret, but in thanksgiving.
You didn’t. Too proud. Too scared.
Free from her for the first time and you didn’t know yet who you were. You didn’t want to be free. You screamed at him because he didn’t rescue the princess in the castle and then when he did rescue her, you screamed at him for trying to rescue her.
You really can’t trust your garden-variety, Shanty Irish princesses these days, can you?
You haven’t talked to Maggie yet either. And you ran out on poor Packy. How long you gonna be a stupid little shit?
For the rest of your life, maybe?
I love him too much for that.
You’ve already wasted a month.
Almost a month. And I am seeing a shrink finally. Someone I heard Maggie talking about often.
You didn’t tell her.
I will pretty soon.
You want to screw with him don’t you.
Sure I do. It was fun. The man is irresistible. Always has been. Always will be. Doesn’t know it yet.
So call him and be done with it. Tell him he’s irresistible.
I’m not ready yet.
You’re less ready every day
That’s true.
She kneels in front of the Madonna, the statue her poor mother brought from Ireland and prays.
/> Hail Mary
Full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
Blessed are thou among women
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
The Feast of St. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and all the other Angels
Angel of God
My Guardian dear
To whom God’s love
Commits me here
All this day
Be at my side
To light, to guard,
To rule and guide.
—Catholic Childhood Prayer
Leo
In September, I had presided over the trauma of Laura’s entry into St. Ignatius and then traveled on fundraising missions around the country.
In California I spent time with Megan and her clan and Pete and his family. Three decades of relative silence meant nothing to the love they felt for me.
I didn’t deserve it, but I reveled in it.
I heard nothing from Jane. The two week deadline I had assigned to her anger had passed. Should I now make an attempt myself? It would be so much better for our future if she did, but there was no point in being an academic perfectionist.
Laura said nothing. She and Lucianne were still fast friends but had apparently decided on a strategy of noninvolvement, most unlikely given their personalities.
Late in the afternoon on the last Thursday in September, a soft, warm day, which made you think summer was coming instead of leaving, the phone rang in my office. Mae had already gone home so I answered it.
Having discovered I liked flowers, that worthy had provided mums for the office before she left, their scent hinting at autumn, maturity, and maybe death.
“Kelly,” I stroked the beard I was growing, just to make sure it was still there.
“I’m calling from Devlin Travel,” a hoarse voice I could barely recognize.
My knees shook, my stomach heaved.
“Ah?”
“We’re offering some tours of Ireland in October. The days in Ireland are short in October, but usually quite nice. We’re planning a historical and political tour, perhaps as long as two weeks. We would begin in Shannon and then go on to Ashford Castle and over to Dublin. We would emphasize West of Ireland history.”
Her voice became more controlled and confident as she talked. Purely a business proposition.
“Ashford Castle is pretty expensive.”
“Reduced rates because of off season.”
“I see.”
“The tour would visit Nora Barnacle Joyce’s home in Galway.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Then it would go on to Dublin to look at Dublin history, particularly as it pertains to the West of Ireland.”
“Uh-huh.”
She had already said that.
“And of course we would follow Mr. Bloom’s famous walk. One could even buy lemon scented soap at Sweney’s on Westland Row.”
I wasn’t sure how that fit in, but it might make some sense.
“Late October is a very busy time at the University.”
“I understand that.”
“I would be expected to lecture?”
“I assume you would lecture. That’s what professors do, isn’t it?”
What kind of game was she playing?
“Large tour?” I said, playing along and beginning to hope.
“Quite small actually.”
“Double occupancy, I presume.”
A sound that might have been a giggle. I imagined her shoulders hunched forward.
“I’m afraid that’s required for the special rate. Twin beds if you like.”
“Then I wouldn’t come.”
“Good. The tickets are already on the way to you by messenger. Be sure to wait for them.”
She hung up.
I threw back my head and laughed. Jane! Jane! Jane!
The phone rang again.
“Yes?” I knew who it was.
“Leo,” she blurted, “I’m driving up to the Lake tomorrow for a quiet weekend. Our daughters are on retreat, doubtless praying for us. It’s gorgeous this time of the year. Heat still on in the swimming pool too. So quiet and peaceful. No one’s there. I have room for a passenger.”
The poor woman was weeping.
“I think I could clear my schedule for that.”
“Good, I’ll come by your apartment at one o’clock?”
“Why that early?”
“If we start early we’ll miss the Friday afternoon rush up to the Lake. You know what that’s like.”
“How come there will be a rush if no one is up there on these weekends?”
“If there isn’t, then we’ll get there early. Maybe do some swimming.” She laughed gaily. “I’ll be at your place promptly at one. Don’t keep me waiting, Lunkhead.”
Because I am mean and stubborn, I replied, “I’ll be at the door, Milady.”
“Yes,” she said, “yes.”
Author’s Note
A full account of the workings of the Birth Control Commission can be found in Robert Blair Kaiser’s book The Politics of Sex and Religion (Leaven Press).
The “Lake” in the story is something like Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, but for the most part it is a construction of my imagination. The University is something like the University, but it is also in great part a construction of my imagination.
Thus the University has never had an Irish Catholic political scientist as Provost, and there is no Appricot Cord 1935, I am told, on the premises of its administration building.
Worse luck for them on both counts? Ah, that would not be for me to say, would it now?
Chicago
Halloween 1996
By Andrew M. Greeley from Tom Doherty Associates
All About Women
Angel Fire
Angel Light
Contract with an Angel
Faithful Attraction
The Final Planet
God Game
Irish Gold
Irish Lace
Irish Whiskey
A Midwinter’s Tale*
Star Bright!
Summer at the Lake
White Smoke
Sacred Visions (editor with Michael Cassutt)
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SUMMER AT THE LAKE
Copyright © 1997 by Andrew M. Greeley Enterprises, Ltd.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-1214-3
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 96-6566
1 The Search for Maggie Ward
* The Cardinal Virtues
* forthcoming
Summer at the Lake Page 42