Our next stop was the neonatal unit. I like to visit them because they were so good to us when we were hanging around trying keep our little eight-hundred-gram preemie alive.
They made a big fuss over my daughter as they do about all those who come back and visit them. So she has to show off. She explained to Jane Foley, who had been the junior resident who gave us the choice of keeping her or not (as though there were any choice), about her mastery of poopoo and her big-girl panties.
Jane in whose eyes tears always appeared when she saw Socra Marie, picked her up and hugged her.
“You’re really a big girl now!”
“Real big!” she said making a big circle over her head as children do.
My eyes were tearing too.
“Do you want to see the babies, Socra Marie?”
My daughter nodded solemnly. Jane caught my eye. Why not?
Socra Marie considered the unit solemnly.
“Babies tiny, Ma.”
“Yes, dear. They came early. So they have to grow to be bigger before their ma and da can take them home.”
“Me never tiny.”
“Yes, you were, dear. But you’re all grown-up now.”
“All babies go home, Ma?”
Even at that age, children are somehow conscious of their mortality.
“Some can’t grow up, so God takes them home to heaven, where they’re bigger than we are.”
That reassured her concern about justice for the tiny ones.
“We pray that God blesses all the babies,” Jane whispered.
“God bless all babies,” my daughter announced.
She had only the vaguest notion about who God was, though perhaps no more vague than anyone does. She did know, however, that God was good.
We paused where a mother at least half a decade younger than I was caressing her daughter gently, carefully, lovingly just as I had caressed Socra Marie.
“That was our crib,” I whispered.
“Your daughter seems fine,” the mother said hesitantly.
“Yours will be too,” I said.
“She’s doing fine,” Jane Foley agreed.
“Who she?”
“Mary Jo,” the mother said.
“Me Socra Marie.”
“Do you want to touch her? She’d like that.”
Socra Marie looked at me.
“Very gently.”
So, as though she was touching an old and expensive piece of cloth, she put her finger on the child’s forehead and quickly withdrew it.
“God bless Mary Jo. Me love you.”
So now we were all in tears.
Dr. Foley asked me if I would sing a lullaby or two as I used to. So I began with the Connemara lullaby as I always did, then added a couple more. The tiny ones all stopped struggling and drank in the sound.
“Same magic.” Jane Foley sighed.
I wished I could come every day and sing for them. I promised I would be back soon.
“God bless Mary Jo,” Socra Marie said as we left.
I wanted to escape as quickly as possible, lest I break down altogether.
Jane and I hugged one another and my child and I slipped quietly into the corridor.
A tall, handsome woman with black hair, touched with gray, in a white doctor’s coat and very pregnant was waiting for us.
“I’m Kate McBride,” she said cautiously, brushing her short hair away from her forehead. “I’m the new director of the unit.”
“Me Socra Marie.” My daughter extended her arms to be lifted from the floor. “God bless all babies.”
My little brat had made another convert.
“And God bless you too, Socra Marie … What a little sweetheart!”
“Manipulator!” I protested. “I’m Nuala Anne.”
“Yes, I know. My maiden name is O’Sullivan.”
“Oh …”
“I want to thank you for taking an interest in my brother Damian …”
Not exactly what I would have suspected.
“I hope you won’t let my father frighten you away … He means well, I think, though sometimes I’m not so sure …”
“Not a chance,” I said firmly.
“My husband and I have a little house in Michiana … Will you be going up there for Memorial Day?”
“Yes, we plan to.”
“I wonder if I could come over and talk.”
“Certainly,” I said.
“Me be there too.”
“Yes, I know, dear,” she said, handing my precious daughter back to me. “You’re very fortunate, Nuala Anne, very fortunate indeed.”
“Wouldn’t I be knowing that, though not often enough. And may God bless you and your child.”
She sighed, not like I sigh but your native-born Yanks really can’t do that.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s a strange job when you’re expecting. Janey tells me I’ll get over it.”
“God bless babies,” my own ex-neonate said.
I wept most of the way back to Southport Avenue. For my miracle child and her father and her brother and sister and for the God who loved us all and had to put up with our weak faith. And for myself, poor clueless eejit that I was.
“Ma cry,” my child observed.
“Sometimes Ma cry when she’s happy.”
“Me never do that.”
The angels must have been watching me because I got back to Southport Avenue without any accidents.
“Mike the Cop call,” Danuta informed me, her dust rag as always clutched in her hand, the same way Socra Marie clutched Dolly.
I put my child in her bed. She departed for the land of Nod, murmuring, “God bless all babies.”
Then I called the Reilly Gallery.
“Nuala?” Annie Casey said to me. “That awful man was here today, just as Dermot said he would be.”
“John Patrick O’Sullivan.”
“Oozing phony South Side Irish charm. He warned us about his son. Said he would buy all the pictures we would hang, so long as we didn’t hang them.”
“How terrible!”
“Mike threw him out.”
“Literally?”
“Not exactly … He had no idea who Mike was.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Mike is going to put a man on him.”
“Good idea, though I don’t think he’s violent.”
“Mike doesn’t want to take any chances.”
Dermot Michael came home at the same time as the kids returned from school and Socra Marie woke up. She had to tell us all about the tiny babies whom God blessed.
Then Dermot Michael and I shared stories. I didn’t once ask him whether his old flame was beautiful. It was clear from his description that she was not his type.
“What’s all this shite about Notre Dame? Do they think it’s a Catholic Harvard?” I asked himself.
“For people like Jackie O’Sullivan from that era, better than Harvard because it is Catholic. You heard the joke about who the most obnoxious person in the country is? A Texan who served in the Marines and graduated from Notre Dame!”
“Oh,” says meself, not understanding at all, at all.
“Like I say, it’s a Catholic theme park, now more than it ever was, the Golden Dome, the Touchdown Jesus, the Grotto where youngsters marry, something for every kind of Catholic, Pre-Council, Post-Council, and the oldest football heritage in the country … Does that help?”
“Try again,” says meself.
“Well, I flunked out, as you know, and my own fault. Still on Saturday afternoon I watch them play football on NBC and cheer loudly.”
“’Tis true.”
“It’s in the blood, Nuala Anne. Notre Dame is one of the great symbols of American Catholicism and of the struggle to become successful Americans and remain good Catholics. Till the 1920s their football teams were called ‘the Catholics’ only then did the name ‘the Fighting Irish’ emerged.”
“And the football team now is mostly black.”
/> It’s also now a first-rate undergraduate college and on its way to becoming a great university … People like Jackie O’Sullivan pervert the symbolism to answer their own needs.”
“Well,” I said, changing the subject, because I still didn’t understand, “I’d like some passionate loving tonight, if I find anyone who is interested.”
“I might just be.”
11
MEMORIAL DAY is a cheat.
I don’t mean honoring the war dead, though I don’t like the way we do that either. Somehow we make their deaths look like a confirmation of our loopy patriotism.
After a long, bitter, cruel Midwest winter, and the first two months of spring dominated by rain, cold, and nasty winds, we middle western Americans figure that we’re entitled to a breath of summer, as we clear away the rubble of our perennials which have been wiped out by false spring. Memorial Day is, after all, by definition the beginning of summer, right?
Anyway, this particular weekend boded to be like all the others, low clouds, mist, and drizzle, par for the course. My wife and I do not agree about trips to the Lake. I argue that when the weekend is clearly wasted we should pack up and head for Chicago, even if it’s Sunday morning. Being from Ireland, she expects the worst of the weather. Guess who carries the day.
“Give over, Dermot Michael. You Yanks are spoiled rotten by the good weather. Sure, isn’t it unhealthy to have as much good weather as you? And bad for your character too?”
She maintains a similar philosophy about athletic matches, as she calls them. No matter how badly your team is losing, there’s always a chance that they might work a miracle. So we don’t leave the stadium or turn off the TV till it’s over. On rare occasions, she’s won that argument too, not that she had to be right occasionally to win it.
In statistical truth (I think) we’re lucky to get one good day on the weekend. Maybe that’s why we, without the dogs, drove to the Lake on Friday morning early, to get ahead of the idiots who would wait till noontime to start. We were using a rented Jeep Grand Cherokee (with a television set in the rear) to convey our massive supply of everything up to the Lake for our six-week stay before we headed to Ireland.
“Poor doggies stay home,” our youngest lamented.
Both shaggy white heads peered out of the picture window on the first floor as we pulled away, a study in massive sorrow.
“The doggies will play with Day,” I assured her. “They’ll hardly miss us.”
Nuala opened her mouth to contest my statement, then closed her mouth again. You don’t contradict your practically perfect husband, even when he’s read the same book you have, which says that dogs are always afraid that when you leave, you might never come back.
We sang American folk songs on the trip as my wife prepared for her show on the Mall in July. Nelliecoyne and the Mick have nice voices and blend in beautifully with their mother. The Tiny Terrorist sings loudly and forcefully and totally off-key.
“You’re in good form, Nuala Anne,” I said as for the third time we mourned the lost beauties of Shenandoah as we wandered across the wide Missouri.
“Sure, I’m not making any progress at all, at all, Dermot love, and meself about to make a friggin’ eejit of meself on national television.”
Which translated into Yankspeak meant that she was getting there.
“Dance, boatman,” Socra Marie shouted. “Dance!”
So we did it once more. We were spared any more singing by the fact that, before we had crossed the “Oh HIGH Oh,” she was sound asleep.
“She’s all wound up,” Nelliecoyne warned us.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
“Mick and I were never that way, were we?”
“You went crazy the first weekend at the Lake,” I said, “each of you in your own way.”
“No way,” they exclaimed.
“Yes way,” I replied.
My wife giggled at my efforts.
When they were worn-out with their singing, Nelliecoyne observed that there was a TV screen in the rear of the Grand Cherokee.
“You can’t play it unless you have tapes,” I said.
“You DO have the tapes, Da!”
“Let me look around here … What do you know! I do have them! Shall we start with Barney?”
They cheered enthusiastically, even Nelliecoyne, who was a little old for Barney.
I passed the tapes back. Nuala Anne was, naturally, driving the car because, as she insisted, she was a better driver than I was. Being-nice-to-poor-Dermot did not include permitting him to drive the car—even though he never had an accident in all his life. Socra Marie woke for a few minutes of the purple dino, then went back to sleep.
We finally pulled up at the cottage and began to unload the Jeep. Nuala had put a strict limit on the number of toys that could be brought to the beach. Still the car was packed with kidjunk.
I lifted the comatose Socra Marie from her car seat and placed her in the driveway. I turned to remove a bag of food.
“There she goes,” the Mick warned us.
I turned around to see her scuttle down the street at full tilt.
“Socra Marie Coyne, you come back here!”
Da was a goof to think that would work. So he chased after her. She had a two-house lead on him, but fast afoot that he is, he finally caught her.
“Me find Kaysue,” she informed me as she struggled in my arms.
“Katiesue won’t be here till tomorrow.”
She continued to push me away.
“Me find Kaysue,” she insisted.
“Kaysue still home,” I said. “Come tomorrow.”
I had slipped into baby talk again. The kid was corrupting me.
“Me find Kaysue!” she yelled, going into a solemn high tantrum. She fell to the ground and wouldn’t move.
My wife and children stood mute.
“A time-out for you, young woman,” I decreed, picking her up and carrying her back to the car.
“Aw, Ma,” she pleaded.
“Da is the big boss, Socra Marie.”
Her tantrum turned into inconsolable weeping.
“Me wanna go home.”
Nuala took her from me and, when I had opened the door, carried her into the house.
“It’s all right, Socra Marie,” she said, “Katiesue will be here tomorrow.”
“God bless Kaysue,” she responded piously. “Me find her tomorrow.”
I took a deep breath and pointed at a chair.
“Time-out!”
“Ah, Da,” she said sadly, her face contrite.
I knelt before her time-out chair and took her tiny hand.
“If you hit a car you might have broken the car or the car might have broken you and that would have broken all our hearts.”
“Me no run on street,” she said, tears clouding her blue eyes. “Promise.”
It was about as sincere as a two-year-old can be. However, I had to establish the policy that I could not be manipulated. Right?
“Good!” I said, choking back a remission of the penalty.
“We’ll go out and look at the Lake after your time-out”
She brightened considerably.
“Me see Lake!”
I glanced around. My wife and older children were watching and listening to me with intense interest. Would I stand up to the little manipulator? The virtuous Nuala Anne, as the little bishop calls her, winked approval. Later she backed it up with a quick kiss, of which I had been receiving many lately.
“Weren’t you the grand da altogether!”
As we were unpacking, a wind drove the clouds and the mist away and granted us for the beginning of summer a jewel of day—clear sky, calm lake, superabundant foliage, glittering flowers. However, it was necessary that we defer gratification. Nuala Anne insisted that we had to unpack our supplies, put everything neatly away, air out the house, plant the Memorial Day annuals, arrange for babysitters, and make sure all the appliances worked. The fact that this might be the only fe
w good hours of the whole foolish weekend was irrelevant. She snapped orders at all of us though only Nelliecoyne and I were competent enough to obey.
Socra Marie pushed at the front door with grim determination.
“Socra Marie Coyne,” her mother shouted. “Stop that now or you’ll get another time-out.”
The little face, bright with the excitement of her first real day at the Lake, curled up in a frown, which suggested that floods of tears were about to flow.
“Ah, Ma …”
“Moire Phinaughla Ain McGrail,” I ordered her. “Cool it!”
When I speak her full name with an approximation of its correct Irish pronunciation, she knows she’s in trouble.
She spun around, glared at me as though she were spoiling for a fight, and crumpled.
“Fair play to you, Dermot love.” She leaned against my shoulder. “Come on kids, let’s put on our swimsuits and head for the beach!”
As we were changing in the master bedroom, she leaned against me again, her bare breasts assaulting my chest.
“I’d become a screeching fishwife”—she sighed—“if it wasn’t for you.”
“I doubt it,” I said gallantly, accepting her kiss.
I was making progress in taming this wild Irishwoman, not that I would really want a tame wife.
Fun and games in bed tonight.
MAYBE.
So, everyone anointed with sunblock and kids sealed in flotation jackets, we descended to the beach. Actually I had to make three trips to bring down all the kidjunk. We were each of us warned to stay away from the water, which was too cold for swimming.
Socra Marie must not have heard the order because her first move was the proverbial beeline for the water. Nelliecoyne caught up with her and grabbed the strap of her polka-dot swimsuit. They both slowed down at the water’s edge because Socra Marie was not sure she wanted to try it after all.
I followed them.
“The water is real cold,” Nelliecoyne warned.
Socra Marie delicately placed her tiny toes in an equally tiny wave.
The result of this venture was a sound that would mark the rest of the weekend, drowning out the roar of the offshore boats, the buzz of the wave runners, the whine of machine tools working their improvements on half the houses on the beach—the piercing screech of our onetime preemie announcing to the world that not only was she alive and well, but she was after having a grand time altogether. You would hear the screech when she was running on the sand, falling on her face or her butt, hugging other members of her family, cooperating clumsily, truth to tell, on the construction of sand castles, or shouting with delight on my promise that the doggies would come next time.
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