Irish Cream

by Andrew M. Greeley

  Nuala and I had walked over to Michiana to praise the new human among us.

  “Have you heard from your family?” Nuala asked tentatively.

  “From Damian of course,” Katie replied. “He’s coming over here next Sunday morning to see Mary Elizabeth. Suddenly Damian is grown-up. And a strange call from Maura, who sounded terrible. Dad has found out about the new trial for Damian and is doing everything he can to reverse the decision. He’s still trying to tilt the playing field, like he did when he got the FAA to reverse its decision against clearing Sean for instrument flying.”

  “There’s really nothing he can do,” Tom added. “Apparently he has some very expensive lawyers working on an appeal of the dismissal. Maura is trying to tell him to forget about it. But he never forgets about anything.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Not a word … She’s not interested in her new granddaughter.”

  “How sad.”

  “I don’t understand it.”

  “Who’s this lovely little girl named after?” Nuala asked innocently, lifting the baby into her arms and humming the Connemara lullaby.

  “My family insisted that if it were a girl baby we had to name her Madeline after my mother,” Katie replied. “Tom was agreeable though he preferred Mary Elizabeth, which is a traditional name in his family. I turned stubborn and said that Mary Elizabeth it would be.”

  “For generations back,” Tom explained, “we alternated between Mary Catherine and Mary Elizabeth. Two of my ancestors who came over from Donegal to New York and then to Chicago. They worked for a priest up there before they emigrated. We have letters he wrote them after they came to America.”

  “Someday we’ll have to sit down and read the letters,” his wife said.

  “What a sweet story!” my wife said, catching my eye triumphantly.

  The dead, she believed with the ancient Irish, are always with us, watching us closely.

  “You see why we’re involved with all this shite, don’t you now, Dermot Michael Coyne?” she said as we walked back to Grand Beach.

  YOU SHOULD SPRINKLE THAT WOMAN WITH HOLY WATER.

  “Woman, I won’t argue with you.”

  “’Twould do you no good … There’s no saving those gobshites,” Nuala complained to me as we turned down Royal Avenue.

  The following Sunday—that horrendous day—began with me oversleeping. The day before we had played tennis and water-skied and helped the kids build a sand castle. Then, after Mass, we took them to the movies because Nelliecoyne wanted to see Powerpuff Girls. She loved it, her brother pronounced it boring, and her little sister went crazy. She stood up on her seat and shouted warnings to Blossoms, Bubbles, and Buttercup as the infamous MoJo Jojo attacked them. She cheered loudly for their triumphs and screamed in horror when they seemed on the edge of defeat.

  People around us tittered.

  “She really loves it,” a woman said to us when we left the theater.

  “Me Buttercup!”

  The daylong effort plus some ingenious amusements with my bed partner must have knocked me out. When I woke up, there was no one in bed with me or in any of the other bedrooms. I rushed down to the kitchen to see the whole human household in robes and the canine contingent stretched out on the floor in sound sleep. The Mick’s head lay on the table as though he was trying to sleep.

  No one looked very happy, except Socra Marie. She was pounding the tray on her high chair and grinning happily.

  “MoJo Jojo all gone, Da!”

  “Good!”

  “Bad.” Me wife looked at me dyspeptically. “Your daughter kept us awake all night. You shouldn’t take her to filums like that.”

  “And wasn’t it my idea that we go?”

  “It was, Da,” Nelliecoyne agreed, selling me out.

  It would be a long hot day.

  Later it was catch-up nap time. The kids were napping in the house, Ethne in her room, the dogs at poolside, Nuala and I under the big umbrella on our deck. It was one of those times that one knows one should escape the greasy heat, go in the house, clean up, and get dressed, especially since a major weather front was coming through in a couple of hours. Sullen clouds already hung over the Lake. There was no kid noise on the beach. Everyone was going home to beat the storm.

  I sighed contentedly—not a Nuala Anne sigh. Rarely do hers indicate contentment, except in bed.

  I was content because we were to have two more weeks of uninterrupted bliss here before we left for Ireland. To tell the truth—what I had told no one—I didn’t want to go to Ireland. I just wanted to vegetate in the warmth of a lazy Chicago summer.

  “If ’tis vegetation you want,” Nuala would have said, “sure, you shouldn’t have married an Irishwoman.”

  “No,” I would have replied, “I shouldn’t have married the Irishwoman I did.”

  That would have been a silly argument, which I would have lost.

  ADMIT IT. YOU’LL LIKE IT IN IRELAND WHEN YOU GET THERE.

  I won’t like leaving here.

  The portable phone Nuala had brought out on the deck rang. Answer it, Nuala.

  Fiona looked up reproachfully from the pool area as if to say, “Answer it, you eejit.”

  I sighed, this time in protest, and picked up the phone.

  “Dermot Coyne.”

  “Kate McBride, Dermot. My family just left. They came for Mary Elizabeth’s Baptism.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “We hadn’t scheduled a Baptism. They had Father King drive over from Notre Dame. He had baptized all of us and all the grandchildren. Apparently they decided that he would baptize Mary Elizabeth too. Mom kept saying, if the child dies without Baptism, she’ll never go to heaven. It was surrealistic. They would not, could not believe that we had scheduled a Baptism at our parish in Chicago next week. They tried to force a Baptism, their kind of Baptism on us.”

  “You resisted.”

  “Certainly. There was a lot of sobbing and shouting, but we kept saying no. The little kids wailed too. I almost agreed but Tom told them to leave our house. Father King drove back to Notre Dame after telling me I was an ungrateful daughter. The others are returning to the Michigan City airport to fly back to Chicago.”

  “They flew over!”

  “With the five kids!”

  “I’ll tell Nuala and get back to you.”

  I woke my bride and told her the story.

  “This isn’t a dream, is it Dermot?”

  “No.”

  She bounced up off the lounge.

  “We have to stop them. Look at that sky!”

  It was growing more ominous by the minute.

  She woke Ethne to leave her in charge. We threw on shorts and sport shirts and drove the Benz at top speed to the Municipal Airport, which was just around the corner on Highway 212. A light rain was already falling when we pulled up to the terminal building. Thought it was only a small general aviation airport with no control tower, Michigan City Municipal was usually busy on a Sunday afternoon. Now only one prop plane was on the ramp. A fuel truck was pumping gasoline into it. A couple of planes were firmly tied down off the ramp and the doors of the row of hangars were closed. Above us the sky seemed more menacing than when we’d left the house—low gray clouds rushing like scared squirrels under the brown overcast.

  The redwood terminal building was a small, though comfortable, waiting room with a couple of model planes hanging from the ceiling, a small television set on the Weather Channel, and comfortable chairs. The O’Sullivans filled it with chaos. The four children were wailing, their nervous mothers trying to calm them, Sean and Pat were poring over a weather map, Madge O’Sullivan was weeping softly, John Patrick O’Sullivan was pacing back and forth shouting at someone on the other side of a counter.

  “Is Palwaukee open?”

  “Yes, sir, it is. For two more hours.”

  “And it’s only a half hour from here to Palwaukee. What are we waiting for?”

  “We don’t advise
it, Mr. O’Sullivan. The overcast is very thick.”

  “Fuck your advice. My son is cleared for instrument flying.”

  “No he’s not, John Patrick O’Sullivan, and you know it,” Nuala intruded. “You tilted the playing field so the FAA would reverse its denial of clearance.”

  O’Sullivan was startled to discover her presence.

  “Mind your own fucking business, you fucking whore! Come on, Sean, let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “You’ll never make it,” Nuala said softly. “You’ll all die, even the kids!”

  There was a moment of silence after Cassandra had spoken.

  I sidled over to Jim Creaghan.

  “She’s fey,” I whispered. “She sees things. Don’t let your wife and child on that plane.”

  He nodded, I thought reluctantly.

  His wife stood apart from him with the family, clutching their child. She seemed on the verge of hysteria.

  Madge O’Sullivan, a pretty, plump woman with white hair and a sweet face walked over to Nuala.

  “Can’t you leave our family alone?” she begged. “Haven’t you done enough harm?”

  Nuala repeated her mantra.

  “Don’t get on that plane.”

  “For the last time, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  He strode out of the door into the rain. The rest of the family straggled out after him, Sean swaggering in his windbreaker and pilot’s cap.

  “A much more experienced pilot wouldn’t try this,” said the man behind the counter. “Most of our general aviation accidents are caused by people like him. At least he filed a flight plan.”

  The plane was indeed painted navy blue and gold with “Flying Irish” on both sides and on the rudder. It was a Cessna Caravan, a ten-passenger utility aircraft. Good, solid, one-engine plane.

  The Creaghans were lagging behind the others, arguing fiercely.

  At the door of the plane, Jim wrenched Todd out of his wife’s arms and turned away. Hesitantly, she followed him. Her father’s bulk appeared in the door. He shouted at her, though we couldn’t hear what he said. Maura looked at her husband’s back and her father’s face, then slowly followed her husband.

  “Thanks be to God! We saved them anyway.”

  They walked slowly back to the terminal. Jim returned the wailing babe to his wife’s arms. They walked into the building.

  The Cessna taxied out to the runway, turned around smartly, and took off. Almost immediately it disappeared into the dark brown overcast.

  “They’re nuts,” I whispered to my wife.

  She nodded solemnly.

  “The children, Dermot, think of the children.”

  “You’re Nuala Anne, aren’t you?” Maura asked my wife.

  “’Tis me name.”

  “Would you hold my little boy for a moment and sing that wonderful lullaby? I’m afraid we upset him.”

  So she did.

  We then drove the Creaghans back to the McBride house in Michiana.

  “Are they really going to die, Nuala Anne?” Maura asked after we dropped them off.

  “Please God, no, but they’re after taking a terrible chance.”

  “You don’t have to be fey, Dermot Michael,” she said to me, “to know that eejit can’t fly that plane over Lake Michigan tonight.

  Later we turned on the ten o’clock news on Channel 6 with foreboding.

  The empty-headed blonde who was the weekend anchor and managed always to be upbeat no matter what brutal crimes she was reporting began with special joy.

  “We have breaking news. A private jet airplane carrying thirteen people from Michigan City to the Palwaukee airport north of Chicago has disappeared from the radar screen over Lake Michigan. Residents on Lake Shore Drive at Fullerton reported a loud explosion at nine forty-five. We have a news team on the way to the site. Preliminary reports are that the plane was owned by the O’Sullivan Electronics Company in Northfield. We will have more on this breaking story later in the broadcast.”

  Nuala and I said nothing for several minutes as the anchors, the sports reporter, and the weatherwoman, played their game of happy little jokes.

  “The children, Dermot,” she said. “The poor children and their lives just beginning.”

  “You did all you could, Nuala. You saved the Creaghans.”

  “The mark of death was on all of them when they got into that plane.”

  “God will take care of them.”

  “He’ll have to, won’t he now?”

  “Shall we go over there?”

  “I don’t think so, Dermot. Cassandra has never been popular.”

  “Our reporter Arleigh McGurk is at Fullerton and Lake Shore Drive. Arleigh, what is happening up there?”

  Arleigh was a fresh-paced punk, just out of journalism school. Dressed in yellow oilskins, which created a nice effect, he was delighted with this triumph for a Sunday-night beat reporter.

  “It would seem, Zenia, that there is a major tragedy in the making up here. Five children were on the plane, which took off from the Michigan City airport three hours ago for the half hour flight to Palwaukee airport north of Chicago. The plane was lost for several hours in the heavy overcast. However, it finally established contact with ground control at Palwaukee and was on distant approach. Then it disappeared off the radar screen and apparently crashed just offshore here. Chicago police boats are already searching for survivors. Police and Coast Guard helicopters are circling overhead. There is speculation here that the pilot became disoriented because he could not see the horizon.”

  The camera cut from McGurk’s pretty face to the black Lake. Searchlights were probing in the darkness.

  Back to McGurk and an African-American Chicago cop.

  “We have here Sergeant Ron Stagg of the CPD maritime unit. Sergeant Stagg, is it true you’ve found wreckage?”

  “Yes it is, uh, Arleigh. Also a body.”

  “A body!”

  “Yes. Of a pretty little blond girl. We are conducting an intensive search for survivors. The weather is hampering our search as you can see.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. Now back to you, Zenia.”

  Arleigh was ecstatic over his scoop. The cop looked like he might cry.

  “Sergeant,” Zenia bubbled, “do you have any comment at this early point in the investigation?”

  “We’re not investigators, ma’am. They’ll come later. My only comment is that a man has no business flying a plane over the Lake with kids in it on a night like this.”

  At the end of the program, they switched back to the “site of the tragedy.”

  “With us now is a survivor of the family in the plane crash here off Fullerton Avenue, Mr. Dominique O’Sullivan.”

  “Damian.”

  “Mr. O’Sullivan, how did you survive the crash?”

  “I wasn’t on the plane. I was here in Chicago. I live right around the corner. I came down to see what happened.”

  Damian was emotionally exhausted but in firm control. I would have slugged Arleigh McJerk.

  “Is it true there were thirteen people on the plane?”

  He made it sound like an accusation.

  “No, sir. I have just spoken with my sister Maura Creaghan. She and her husband and son are still in Michiana. They did not return on the plane.”

  “So there were only ten?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you certain that was the number?”

  “I am not certain of anything.”

  “So you have lost your whole family in this tragedy.”

  “No, my two sisters, Maura Creaghan and Kathleen McBride, are still alive.”

  “It still must be a heavy loss.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Thank you, Dominque. Zenia, we’ve just heard from Dominique Sullivan, whose whole family including five children has apparently been wiped out in this tragic accident.”

  “Unbelievable,” Nuala said. “They never learn, do they?”

  Zenia
was back on the screen.

  “Dominique do you have any regrets about not dying with the rest of your family?”

  “Well, as I said, my two sisters and their husbands and children are still alive. I’m sad about the loss, but glad I’m still alive.”

  “Cindy is driving tomorrow morning. Do you think we ought let Ethne go in with her?”

  “Damian will need a lot of support, though he was brilliant altogether with them media eejits.”

  “Sure. I’ll call Cindy.”

  “Does Ethne know yet, Derm?” my sister asked.

  “She’s sound asleep. We’ll tell her when she wakes up.”

  “Is there a romance there?”

  “Not yet. They’re both grown-ups. They won’t charge into anything. Herself isn’t betting against it.”

  “Damian is older than you were when you chased after that gorgeous Irish witch of yours.”

  “It was the other way around. She came here, I didn’t go there.”

  Nuala of course had listened in on another phone.

  “I never chased after you! I just indicated my availability! And wasn’t I the lucky one in finding you?”

  It was still “be-nice-to-Dermot” time.

  Kate McBride called us and begged us to come over. We did. Maura was on the phone talking to Damian.

  “Oh, Nuala Anne is here with her husband.”

  “He wants to talk to you, Dermot.”

  “I still can’t believe it, Dermot,” he began. “All the little kids …”

  “You’ve done well so far with the idiots, Day. Keep it up. My sister and Ethne will return to back you up.”

  “Good, I need backup. And, Dermot, Maura spent ten minutes begging for forgiveness. She can’t believe that I said I did forgive her.”

  “She’ll be all right, Day. She was almost on the plane.”

  “Nuala?”

  “Who else?”

  “May I speak to her?”

  We stayed around with the bereaved. We Irish are good at that.

  On the way home, herself said to me, “Sure aren’t those two women devastated and themselves also relieved that it is all over.”