Blood Ties

by Ralph McInerny

  Marie made a dismissive sound. As she pushed through into the kitchen, she muttered, “Luminous Mysteries!”

  The young couple who had called were due at ten. Before they arrived, Marie, her insurrectionary thoughts forgotten, briefed Father Dowling.

  “The Dolans, you’ve met. They were married here in the church. Before my time, of course. And the Lynches, too. Also before my time.”

  “So it isn’t a matter of memory.”

  “I looked it up.”

  So had Father Dowling. He should have known Marie would anticipate him. “You would make a wonderful assistant pastor, Marie.”

  “Assistant pastor!”

  “Pastor?”

  But it was the recurring topic of women priests that vexed Marie, not the idea of taking a subsidiary role. Like many women, she was a harsh judge of her gender, and her reaction to the Luminous Mysteries was as nothing to what she thought of the agitation for women’s ordination.

  “Thank God the pope has stood firm.”

  “Luminously so.”

  She glared at him, and the doorbell rang, taking her down the hall to the front door.

  Martha Lynch was a beautiful young woman, and Bernard Casey a handsome young man. Marie was beaming when she brought them to the study. Father Dowling rose and greeted them and pointed Martha to a chair.

  Bernard remained standing, looking around the room. “I would say it is like a law library, but there the volumes all look alike.”

  “I have a degree in canon law. There are some legal volumes there, though not the kind you’re familiar with.”

  “So you’re a canon lawyer.”

  “For my sins.”

  “Do you know Amos Cadbury?”

  “Amos is a dear friend.”

  “The only other lawyer I know in Fox River is a man named Tuttle.”

  “Tuttle!”

  “You know him, too?”

  “Only by reputation. It is difficult to think of him and Amos Cadbury as in the same profession.”

  Martha said, “We want to be married in St. Hilary’s.” She smiled radiantly as she said it. “It’s a family tradition.”

  “So I understand. The Dolans are your grandparents?”

  “They just love coming to the senior center. They have renewed acquaintance with so many old friends.”

  “Well, tell me about yourselves.”

  Each seemed as interested in what the other had to say as Father Dowling was. Their description of their families and their education gave a reassuring picture.

  “How long does marriage preparation take, Father?”

  “Well, it is up to the discretion of the pastor. Given your backgrounds, I think a few meetings will do. I would advise you to read the sections on marriage in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I hope you have a copy.”

  “I kept mine from college,” Martha said.

  “Have you settled on a date for the wedding?”

  They exchanged a look. Martha became solemn. “Father, I am only an adopted daughter of the Lynches.”

  “Only? That isn’t an impediment.”

  “But I don’t know anything about my real parents.”

  Father Dowling remembered his conversation with Henry Dolan in this very room. He had spoken to her father as well. A priest knows so many things from so many different sources, and the connections he makes must usually be confined to the privacy of his own mind. This lovely young woman’s determination to find out who her birth mother was had particularly wounded Mrs. Lynch but had brought anguish to the Dolans as well. Father Dowling smiled an enigmatic smile.

  “I could say that none of us really does, but that isn’t an answer you would accept. Why exactly does being adopted bother you?”

  “It doesn’t. My parents, the Lynches, have been wonderful to me. It’s painful that they think I’am questioning that now. Mainly, I feel I owe it to Bernard.”

  “Then there’s no problem,” Bernard said.

  “Of course you would say that. Father, Bernard’s family accepts me because they know the Lynches and the Dolans. But what will they think when they find out I’m not really a Lynch, let alone a Dolan?”

  “Have you asked them?”

  Bernard said, “Martha, if it will make you feel better, I’ll let them know.”

  “No. It must come from me. Of course, there are ways of putting these things that make it impossible for people to object. I know that. But I don’t want that kind of waiver.”

  It was an unusual discussion between young people planning to marry, but Father Dowling found himself admiring Martha’s disinclination to be thought something other than she was. The difficulty was determining the alternative.

  “Surely you don’t intend to remain single if you cannot discover who your mother was.”

  “I have to make an effort to find out.”

  “We are,” Bernard said. He looked at Father Dowling. “I mentioned Tuttle. I’ve asked him to check local records and see if he can satisfy Martha’s curiosity.”

  “You would have been better advised to ask Amos Cadbury.”

  “Oh, this is routine work, Father. It doesn’t require a lawyer of Cadbury’s stature. He would just pass it on to a junior in the firm anyway. This is something a paralegal could do.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Martha put in.

  He laughed. “A very good one, I mean.” To Father Dowling he said, “Martha is a paralegal in our firm.”

  “Have you heard anything from Tuttle?”

  “Not yet.”

  They went on to the business at hand. “You both understand that marriage is a sacrament, instituted by Our Lord himself…” They followed what he said intently, but it was clear none of this was new to them. Before the hour was up, Father Dowling felt that he could conscientiously have married them that afternoon. He told them as much.

  “I’m game,” Bernard said.

  “Let’s say that we meet several more times. Do the reading I suggested. There are some wonderful things by the Holy Father you will want to read as well. Meanwhile, decide on a date.”

  “Is your wedding schedule crowded?”

  He smiled. “This is not the campus church at Notre Dame, Bernard. Here we have far more funerals than weddings. I am not suggesting an alternative.”

  Marie looked in and offered coffee, and coffee they had. Father Dowling got out his pipe.

  Bernard said, “That explains the lovely lingering aroma in here.”

  “Oh, that would be Marie’s cigars.”

  The housekeeper refused to be teased. Weddings had indeed become a rare treat at St. Hilary’s, and Marie had clearly taken to this couple.

  After they left, she said, “Blood will tell, Father Dowling. Blood will tell.”

  “Back to your kitchen, Dracula.”

  9

  Amos Cadbury made the arrangements, and with some trepidation George Lynch went to meet the woman he had not seen since she gave birth to Martha. How those years seemed to have flown. George had a very different temperament from his wife’s, but Martha’s insistence that she must know who her real mother was had saddened him as well. Not that he didn’t understand her desire. He found himself wondering about the young woman who had given them her child, and how the years had treated her.

  Amos’s account had been reassuring. “Her husband teaches philosophy at Northwestern. She has four sons.”

  “So you told me.”

  “Be prepared for an uncanny resemblance to Martha.”

  As he drove to Evanston from his laboratories, George told himself that he was on his way to report to Martha’s mother on her daughter. He was proud of what Martha had become and was determined that Madeline Lorenzo should be proud as well. Above all, he wanted her to see the wisdom of the difficult decision she had made so many years ago. It helped that she had all those sons.

  It might have been Martha herself who turned to George when he entered the bookstore she had given as their meeting place. There were the same
blue, almost green eyes, and the thick honey-colored hair. She even wore it in the same style Martha did.

  “Mrs. Lorenzo?”

  She looked at him quietly. What image of that fateful day had she carried with her? A woman in childbirth presents an elemental picture, but George had had a glimpse of her when Sheila went in to talk with her just days before the girl gave birth.

  “Amos Cadbury told me how much like Martha you look.”

  She smiled. “Isn’t it the other way around?” She took his hand. Holding hers, George, who was not an imaginative man, thought how unlikely a meeting this was. She led him to shelves along the wall. Literature. It was a used-book shop, one of the many in Evanston, as George had just discovered in looking for this one. She took a book from the shelf, as if to explain their being here.

  “Your wife didn’t come.”

  “She is taking this very hard.”

  “This?”

  “Martha’s wanting to know you.”

  “Martha. That’s a lovely name.”

  “You would be very proud of her,” George said. “She is a wonderful young person. I should have known that the time would come when she would want to seek you out. It isn’t that she hasn’t been happy, she has been, as we have always been delighted with her. Now that she plans to marry…”

  “Marry!”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “Come,” she said. In the back of the store, coffee was available, and chairs in which to sit. No other customers were there. She took a rocking chair but sat forward, feet firmly forbidding the chair to rock. “I don’t have to tell you how strange it is to be talking of her, Dr. Lynch.”

  “George.”

  “George. How often I have thought of her, wondered what she was like at this age and that. Tell me about her.”

  For George, Martha was an inexhaustible subject, and his reticence fled as he gave her the story of Martha’s life. He might have been making an accounting of their stewardship. She followed what he said with great attention, her expression altering as he passed from peak to peak of Martha’s accomplishments. George had the sense that he was reporting on Martha to an older version of herself. Finally, he came to Martha’s employment at Foley, Farnum, and Casey.

  “I’m surprised she didn’t go to law school.”

  “She thought of that. She took the LSATs and was accepted at several law schools, Northwestern among them.”

  “We might have passed one another on the walk if she had. Why didn’t she go?”

  “She said it would seem she wanted a career.”

  “What does she want?”

  “To marry.” He looked at her. “To be what you are, I think.”

  “What a nice thing to say.”

  “You have other children?”

  She nodded. “That is what makes this difficult. Of course, they know nothing of Martha.” She paused. “My husband does.”

  “You mustn’t think that Martha has any intention of disrupting your life.”

  “Oh, no. But then, disruption comes in many forms.”

  “I think if she could just talk to you, meet you.”

  “How I would love that.”

  “She could be taken for your sister.”

  Madeline smiled. “No. If we meet, there must be no more subterfuge.”

  “I think she would say the same.”

  “I would not tell her about her father. Never.”

  “She doesn’t seem at all curious about him.”

  She looked at him with a half smile. “I am so glad we’ve met at last.” Her brow clouded. “Her father is dead.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just recently. He was struck by a car in Fox River.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “He reappeared out of nowhere wanting to see our child.”

  After a moment she went on, telling him about their meeting. She shuddered at the memory. “He would have disrupted my life without a second thought. I went to Amos Cadbury to tell him Nathaniel had reappeared.”

  “Amos told me something of that.”

  “And arranged for us to meet.”

  “Yes. I hope this isn’t too upsetting.”

  “I find it strangely consoling. As I said, my husband knows, but it isn’t something we could talk about.”

  “Would you want to see Martha?”

  “Want to? More than anything in the world. But I dread it, too. It wasn’t easy for me to agree to see you.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “My sons,” she said, and looked away.

  That a woman like this should run the risk of becoming something less in her children’s eyes seemed to George the height of injustice. He wanted to tell her not to agree, but that would be to betray Martha. His natural taciturnity saved him the need to say anything.

  “I have to think about it. My husband doesn’t know of our meeting, but I couldn’t see Martha unless he agreed.” She rocked once in her chair, then rose. “Thank you so much for coming. I know this must be difficult for you as well.”

  “I wanted you to know about Martha.”

  “Thank you. Now I want to see her all the more.”

  They parted outside, where she said she would let Amos Cadbury know what the next step, if any, would be.

  10

  Bernard Casey’s reaction when Tuttle telephoned the young lawyer made Tuttle wish he had taken this course at first. His disastrous visit to the Dolans had not done much for his self-esteem. Their mention of Amos Cadbury brought the fear that they would tell the dean of the Fox River bar about his going to them. No doubt Dolan would portray it as an effort to shake them down. As the event receded into the past, Tuttle’s estimate of his own performance lessened. He had got in a few good licks, but what was the point? His exit line was a bluff, of course. Any attempt to extract payment from Dolan would doubtless bring Cadbury into the fray. Wistful thoughts of that fifty-dollar bill, tossed disdainfully on the coffee table, were difficult to expunge from memory.

  “How much should I bill Martin Sisk for?” Hazel asked when he told her he had reported to his client.

  “Use a heavy hand.” He blamed Martin for his embarrassment with the Dolans.

  “Well, you said he was loaded. So you found the woman he was looking for?”

  Tuttle had not put Hazel wholly in the picture of late, not something easily done. How could she criticize him if she didn’t know what he was doing? But there had been some truth in what Tuttle had said to Martin and then to the Dolans. He did not wish to be the instrument of disturbing innocent lives. Tuttle’s childhood had been a happy one, in memory even happier than it had truly been. His mother had been forty when she bore him, and he was accordingly cherished the more—their little Isaac, as his father had called him. Much as he loved his father, Tuttle seldom revealed his Christian name. It didn’t sound Christian at all. Besides, the allusion was all wrong. When Tuttle read the account in Genesis of Abraham taking his son Isaac to Mount Moriah to offer him in sacrifice, he thought of how unlikely it was that his father should have acted on such a dream. His father’s unwavering support while Tuttle fought his way through law school had increased his son’s sense of family ties. With his father, he had often visited his mother’s grave and found nothing odd in the way his father had talked aloud to her as if she were there with them. Perhaps she was. But it was his father’s presence that Tuttle often felt now, his counsel he invoked, his name that explained the TUTTLE & TUTTLE on his door. Tuttle had come away from the Dolans ashamed, feeling his father’s disapproval of what he had done.

  Bernard Casey was another matter. His interest was merely to satisfy the curiosity of the woman he intended to marry. Surely there was no threat in that to anyone.

  “Same place?” Casey asked when Tuttle called.

  “Water Tower Place.”

  “At the top of the escalator.”

  Casey was waiting for Tuttle when he rose from street level. They went again to Starbucks, where Tuttle took care in
sipping his coffee. Once burned, twice shy. He might have been thinking of his visit to the Dolans as well.

  “So you’ve located her?”

  “I have.”

  Casey waited. Tuttle turned his paper mug on the table before him, looking for true north. He lifted his eyes to Casey.

  “Is something wrong?” Casey asked.

  “No. I have learned the family is not anxious for the young lady to have this information.”

  “Martha isn’t likely to cause anyone trouble, you know.”

  Tuttle had not met Martha Lynch. The thought that by telling her he might avenge himself on the Dolans he rejected out of hand. “I have also learned that the family knows the identity of the woman. Amos Cadbury has spoken with her.”

  “And they refuse to tell Martha?”

  Tuttle shrugged. It was seldom that conscience made him cowardly, but now he felt a strange reluctance to reap the fruits of his research. “I had to make a trip to South Bend.”

  “For the adoption papers?”

  “You knew they had been registered there?”

  “The Lynches showed that document to Martha, but it doesn’t identify her mother.”

  “That document was in Fox River.”

  Casey shook his head. “Amos Cadbury is a very cagey lawyer.”

  “The best,” Tuttle said despite himself.

  “Look, Tuttle. You’re my lawyer, I’m your client. This is between us. Of course you will be compensated for your work. I’m impressed.”

  The young man’s attitude removed all barriers. Tuttle said, “Her name is Madeline Lorenzo now. She lives in Evanston.”

  “Married?”

  “With a family. Her husband teaches at the university.”

  “Ah. I can appreciate your caution.” He had made notes on what Tuttle told him in a little leather notebook with bronze corners and a yellow ribbon. He looked up. “I would prefer that you didn’t send the bill to me at the firm. This is my home address.” He jotted it on the back of a business card and gave it to Tuttle as he rose to leave. “Good work, Tuttle.”

  Tuttle remained with his cooling coffee. Why didn’t he feel a sense of triumph? Casey’s praise had warmed his heart, and he did not doubt the young man’s discretion. But there were so many currents running in this situation, someone was bound to be hurt.