Three Marys

by Glenn Cooper

  ‘Good people, it is time for you to receive Holy Communion. Before you come forward, I’m sure you will wish for us to first extend Communion to our beloved Holy New Virgin Marys. Holy Mothers, please come to the altar.’

  Mary Riordan whispered to the Marias, ‘He means us,’ and did a pantomime of drinking wine and eating a wafer. Mary rose and leaned back over the pew to Sue. ‘Did you think that was ever going to end?’

  With that, Sister Anika pulled the Irish girl toward the altar by the sleeve of her white dress and the cathedral erupted in the wash of camera flash.

  The afternoon sun was blazing while Anning and Pole went for a stroll near the mansion house.

  Anning was Texas-casual in jeans, cowboy hat and boots, and Pole was papal-casual in a simple white cassock and red slippers.

  ‘So how do you like being pope so far, George?’ Anning asked.

  ‘You might want to call me Holy Father or Your Holiness,’ he replied.

  ‘I have my answer,’ Anning said. ‘You like it a lot. How long do you think it’s going to take you to recruit a college of cardinals?’

  ‘Not long. I have stacks of letters and hundreds of emails from priests and bishops. Bishop Ticuna, our friend from Peru, will likely be among the first. But I’ll tell you this, Randy, we’re not going to have any homosexuals joining the clergy of the NCC. We’re going to have a litmus test and that means background checks – good ones.’

  ‘You know I’m fine with that.’

  ‘And unrepentant homosexuals and women who had abortions won’t be getting Communion or NCC burial rites.’

  ‘You know I’m more than good with that too. You’ve got your work cut out for you. Lot of work to build a worldwide organization from scratch. You can’t do it alone. Take it from me. I’ve built companies. You’re going to need good people.’

  ‘I completely agree,’ Pole said. ‘When are you breaking ground on my Apostolic Palace? We’re going to need it sooner rather than later plus buildings for the NCC’s administrative offices and living quarters for officials. And a more immediate need is Confessional booths. We’ve got a tent city full of the new faithful who will want Confession.’

  ‘Confession booths are cheap – we can move on them. The other stuff isn’t. I’ve got deep pockets but I want to lay off some of the funding of your grand vision on to donations. We’re going to raise a lot of money, believe me. But don’t fret, I’ve got my architects working on a site master plan for – what did you want to call the place?’

  ‘New Vatican City.’

  ‘OK, sure. Good name. Trips off the tongue. Your Holiness.’

  As they got near the stables Anning swore.

  ‘I hope what’s going on isn’t what I think is going on,’ he said.

  The girls were talking to one of the stable men while others were saddling up horses.

  Anning quick-walked the rest of the way with Pole just about keeping up.

  ‘What is happening here?’ Anning shouted.

  Sue was with the girls while Torres was with the babies.

  ‘They’re just going for a picnic and a swim with Pedro, Mr Anning,’ Sue said.

  ‘On whose authority?’

  ‘Mine, I guess. It’s a reward. They’ve been really good.’

  Mary Riordan had been helping to cinch her saddle. She looked up and said, ‘Yeah, in keeping with the religious theme of the day, we’ve been bloody little angels.’

  ‘I don’t like your tone, young lady,’ Anning said.

  ‘That’s Holy Mother,’ to you, she said, sticking out her tongue.

  ‘Now, now,’ Pole said. ‘That’s no way to behave, Mary. Mr Anning has given you so much.’

  ‘Whatever,’ she said, returning to the saddle cinches.

  Anning was fuming. ‘Miss Gibney, I’m not going to allow horseback riding. It’s far too dangerous. What if one of them were to fall and hurt herself? No, it’s out of the question.’

  Pedro stepped forward a pace. ‘Excuse me, señor, but the girls are good riders. These are the most gentle horses. I’ll make sure they are safe.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Anning demanded.

  ‘It’s Pedro, señor.’

  ‘OK, Pedro, pack your bags, you’re fired. No one talks back to me on my own damn ranch. I want you off my property by sundown. And Miss Gibney, report to Mrs Torres’s office in an hour. We’ll speak then.’

  When it was time for her to go downstairs to face the music, Sue told the girls she’d be right back. They were all crying, even tough-as-old-boots Mary Riordan.

  ‘That’s the last bloody time we go to one of his fucking Masses,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Don’t swear, Mary,’ Sue said, wrapping her up in a hug. ‘You’re way too holy for that.’

  That kind of a comment usually got a laugh out of the girl but not this time.

  ‘What happened to you, Sue?’ Maria Mollo said through her tears.

  ‘I’ll let you know when I know. Mary, make her understand that.’

  Mary did a silly pantomime and both Marias got it.

  ‘Be back as soon as I can,’ she said.

  In the hall, the nuns were lurking. Sue told them if they knew what was good for them they wouldn’t enter the girl’s bedroom right now.

  Anning was sitting behind the desk while Mrs Torres stood, her arms folded, her lip trembling, from what Sue assumed was a dressing-down.

  ‘Sit down, Miss Gibney,’ he said.

  Sue spoke first, ‘I want you to know that Mrs Torres has had nothing to do with the girls and horseback riding. It was always my idea to get them to behave. A carrot on a stick. They behaved, they got to ride.’

  ‘Well, I understand, but this is Mrs Torres’s show. She’s my manager here. You work for her. Ultimately the safety of the girls and their sons are her responsibility. So, she’s not absolved, are you, Lidia?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Now I can see the girls are fond of you, Miss Gibney, and well they should be. You were there from the beginning. You delivered their babies. I’m sure you’re a good, reliable person. I wouldn’t have hired you unless you checked out as well as you did. But here’s the thing. I can’t have you making unilateral decisions that affect their safety and welfare. I need you to be a team player. Are you willing to be a team player?’

  ‘Look, Mr Anning, I can leave if you’d like me to. I was supposed to go already. Lidia persuaded me to stay.’

  ‘No, I don’t want you to leave. You’re an asset for the girls and I recognize that. I simply need your assurance that you’ll act like a member of the team and consult Mrs Torres on all significant decisions.’

  ‘All right,’ Sue said. ‘Team player.’

  Anning’s phone rang. He answered it and turned his back on Sue and Torres.

  ‘Yes, Mr President, how are you? Good, good, did you watch the service? Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. No, we don’t have the ratings yet. Yes, I’m sure, you’re right. They’ll be huge.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  The ratings were, in fact, huge. All told, the Mass was seen live by 540 million people, including 90 million within the United States.

  ‘Look at these numbers,’ Anning said, waving the papers at Pole. ‘Biggest TV event in history. And it was in Latin! Wait till I tell Griffith.’

  President Griffith did indeed take note and he took action. At noon on Monday the White House put out a presidential statement.

  Along with millions of his fellow Americans, President Griffith watched Pope Peter of the New Catholic Church celebrate Mass at the marvelous Cathedral of the Blessed New Virgin Marys in the great state of Texas. Today he issued this statement: ‘As you know, Kristy and I are Catholics. We have steadfastly maintained our faith even as the arch-liberal policies of Pope Celestine have changed the Church for the worse, pushing a failed political agenda and de-emphasizing its bedrock principles of theology and morality. We maintained our faith because we felt we had no other place to go to worship within the traditions o
f Catholicism. That has changed. We now have another place to go. As of today, Kristy and I are uniting with Pope Peter and will join the New Catholic Church. We intend to travel to Texas next Sunday to celebrate Mass at the Cathedral of the Blessed New Virgin Marys.’

  Later in the day Cal got a text from Murphy.

  Murphy: See the statement from Pres Griffith?

  Cal: Yeah. Can you believe it?

  Murphy: Believe what? That he’s a giant tool?

  Cal: I think we knew that already.

  Murphy: Not that I needed another reason to hate the fellow but this is the icing on the cake.

  Cal: Worst President in history. Thank your lucky stars you’re not American.

  Pope Celestine was rarely given to flashes of anger but his old friend Cardinal Da Silva was seeing it in spades tonight. The day before, Celestine had endured the entirety of Pole’s Mass, which he watched with Sister Elisabetta in his lounge, drinking cup after cup of coffee and getting increasingly agitated, to the point where she cut him off by unplugging his coffee machine. He had fielded urgent calls all day from cardinals across the globe, informing him of impending defections of parishioners and asking for direction. And Elisabetta had given him a copy of President Griffith’s statement earlier in the evening.

  Celestine was florid, his neck veins bulging. ‘Rodrigo, we are in the midst of a crisis. We have the beginnings of a true schism on our hands. Everything we are trying to achieve must be put on hold as we deal with this. Disaster!’

  ‘I cannot disagree with anything you say, Holy Father.’

  The pontiff sagged on to a chair and flopped his arms on to his lap. ‘This is of my making. Perhaps I went too fast with my reforms.’

  ‘No, Holy Father. I emphatically say no. The Church you and I love is a compassionate Church, a loving Church, an inclusive Church. How can reaching out to the poor, the displaced, the disenfranchised be anything but actions that Jesus Christ himself would champion? Pole and this wealthy man behind the curtain, Randall Anning, have built a sinister version of the Church. People will see through it.’

  Celestine nodded. ‘What should we do?’

  ‘First, we must put out a papal encyclical, condemning the schismatics and affirming the primacy of the Holy Roman Church over matters of faith and dogma. We must lay out a firm framework under canon law in case the matter becomes more serious and we must take further steps.’

  ‘Fine, yes.’

  ‘Second, we must accelerate the formal investigation of the girls. If their pregnancies are miraculous then we must declare them so and embrace the girls and their offspring within the Holy Roman Church. If they are not miraculous, we must make that declaration and lay out the evidence.’

  The pope nodded his assent. ‘Please have the Congregation for the Causes of Saints formally take this up on a fast track and assign our best people.’

  ‘Third, I’ve summoned Mrs Abernathy, the American Ambassador to the Vatican, for an urgent consultation tonight. I will lodge a formal protest concerning the intemperate remarks and actions of President Griffith.’

  ‘And what will that accomplish?’

  ‘Practically nothing. It is a matter of form and protocol. Also, she is quite useless. She is the wife of one of Griffith’s political allies who has no background in diplomacy or international affairs. Her sole credential seems to be her Catholicism.’

  ‘Is that it, Rodrigo?’

  ‘No, there’s a fourth item – and this is from Sister Elisabetta – you must have your blood pressure checked. Imagine how I would feel if I lost my dear friend? And imagine having to conduct a conclave with all of this going on?’

  Cal felt his mobile buzzing in the jacket of his sports coat while he was giving a lecture on the causes and ramifications of the First Crusade. When the lecture was done he glanced at the missed call notification then moved as rapidly as he could through the questions put to him by the scrum of undergrads swarming the lectern. Most were more interested in hearing what he had to say about the NCC than the Crusades.

  ‘Guys, I’ve got to run,’ he said finally. ‘Come to my office hours and we can keep going with your questions.’

  Back at his office, he ignored the telephone message slips the departmental secretary left on his desk and a hundred new emails, many of them media requests. He returned the missed call.

  ‘Mrs Gottlieb, Cal Donovan here. I got your message.’

  Her voicemail had sounded urgent and her voice now had lost none of its tremulousness. ‘I think I need your help.’

  ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘Someone broke into my house.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night. A girlfriend had me over. You know, to take my mind off of things. When I got home I heard someone in the house. I shut the door, got back in my car and drove away.’

  ‘Did you call the police?’

  ‘Yes. They came and found a back door was forced. Someone went through Steve’s desk. I don’t think anything is missing but I’m scared.’

  ‘I’m sure you are.’

  ‘I feel so stupid. I didn’t set the alarm when I left. My brain’s been scrambled. Steve told me to use the new alarm every time.’

  ‘New alarm?’

  ‘He had the system replaced a few weeks ago because of the previous break-in.’

  ‘You had another burglary?’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly a burglary. Nothing was taken. Someone broke in and left something. In Steve’s office safe.’

  ‘What did they leave?’

  ‘A dead animal. An opossum. It was very pregnant.’

  Cal tried to process what he was hearing but it wasn’t making a lot of sense.

  ‘Mrs Gottlieb, why do you think your husband wanted to see me?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘He said it had something to do with the Marys, the Catholic girls. They were pregnant too. Could there be a connection?’

  She began to cry. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.’

  He didn’t have a clue how to calm her down over the phone. ‘Look, Mrs Gottlieb, your husband called me after seeing my interview on TV. He knew I was involved with these girls. So here’s the question: did he have any involvement?’

  He heard her blowing her nose. ‘I don’t think so. How could he have? We’re Jewish. He was in finance. He didn’t have anything to do with pregnant girls.’

  ‘Please, think about it. There must be some connection. He called me because he wanted to tell me something he knew.’

  ‘I watched 60 Minutes with Steve. He knew him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Anning.’

  Cal tightened his grip on his phone. ‘Randall Anning? How did he know him?’

  ‘That plane crash that he talked about surviving? Three years ago? Steve was there. He was the only other survivor.’

  Cal’s phone hand was hurting. ‘Did your husband see Anning since then? Did they talk or communicate in any way?’

  ‘I don’t think they did. Steve would have mentioned it. I’m sure he would have. We talked about everything, even his work.’

  ‘Mrs Gottlieb, I want you to think hard and tell me everything you know about that plane crash.’

  Over the next week, the situation at the ranch deteriorated.

  Sue knew it. Mrs Torres knew it. But Anning didn’t want to hear about it. ‘Handle it,’ he told Torres, ‘or I’ll find someone who can.’

  The girls were on a rampage. They were relieved, of course, that Sue hadn’t gotten the chop, but they were beside themselves over Pedro’s dismissal and their loss of horse-riding privileges. They wouldn’t get dressed in the morning, they wouldn’t shower or make their beds, and they sure as hell weren’t going to do their school lessons. Of course they took care of their babies – breastfeeding, bathing, changing diapers – but otherwise they were on strike.

  As Sunday approached, the girls sensed they had more leverage and Mary presented Sue with a list of demands, written out in
her schoolgirl handwriting.

  Sue read the page and shook her head.

  ‘They’re not going to re-hire Pedro,’ she said. ‘I’ve been lobbying all week for it and it’s a done deal. Anyway, I doubt he’d even want to come back after being treated like that.’

  ‘He’s not the only one who can take us riding,’ Mary said, softening. ‘The other fellows are nice too but Eeyore really likes Pedro. She’s the most upset about him.’

  ‘Maybe I can get them to agree to let you ride only in the paddock. I think it was the trail riding that really freaked them out.’

  ‘Riding in a little circle is bollocks,’ Mary said, returning to a hard-line position. ‘No Pedro and no trail rides means no Mass on Sunday. You tell them we’re serious. And what about the third item?’

  Sue looked at the page again. ‘I didn’t think the white dresses were all that bad.’

  ‘Mary said what?’ Mrs Torres asked.

  Sue had gone to her office to argue the case for the girls and had dutifully relayed Mary’s threat.

  ‘She said that if they were forced to go to Mass against their wills, they would get up and moon the pope during the service.’

  Even repeating it out loud struck Sue as funny, but Torres clearly was not amused.

  ‘Look, Sue, I’ve had several conversations with Mr Anning this week and he’s adamant. He’ll never take Pedro back and he won’t let them ride. When he makes a decision he sticks to it. I’ve worked for him for a long time. He’s a successful man and an uncompromising one.’

  ‘Is he married?’

  ‘His wife is in Houston. Betsy hates it up here. She’s from Los Angeles originally and can’t stand the cowboy way of life.’

  ‘She wouldn’t even come for the Mass?’

  ‘She’s not Catholic. I don’t know what she is. I don’t think she cares about religion.’

  ‘Well if she came here and saw how miserable the girls are, maybe she could have some influence.’

  ‘I met her once and she’s a very unfeeling person. Anyway, it’s not going to happen.’