Acts of Faith (45 page)

McIntyre & Alleyn would still be smarting from my takeover of their cherished firm. They had conveniently forgotten that it was only young Pete McIntyre’s extraordinary combination of arrogance and ineptitude that had brought them to the brink of bankruptcy the year before, and that I had appeared as a white knight to save the company with a deftly organized leveraged buyout.

Into this lion’s den I would walk, a modern Daniel, where I would confront the man who had so wronged my
sister and effectively destroyed her life, the man who, by denying him a father, had in a sense ruined Eli’s life as well.

The first few seconds were of course the hardest. I entered the boardroom and saw Tim—perhaps five pounds heavier than when I last had seen him but otherwise unchanged. As we shook hands he mouthed some platitudes about my father’s death. I acknowledged them politely and suggested we get down to the business at hand.

I took one look at their portfolio and realized that its mediocrity was not even the fault of some cretin like Pete McIntyre. It was a case of plain and simple neglect.

While in the outside world the prime rate was hovering around twenty percent, they were still holding government bonds harking back to World War II, which were earning a mere three or four percent. By the time we broke for lunch I had set out a preliminary restructuring plan, and Tim was effusively grateful.

Fortunately, McIntyre & Alleyn obviously felt some kind of
noblesse oblige
to keep Tim company. So we were not alone when we munched our sandwiches, and Father Hogan could only make the obvious small talk, like asking how I, who had once embarked upon a career dedicated to upholding the values of the past, ended up seeking value in futures.

I gave him a short course in options buying, beginning with my Russian wheat ploy in the summer of ’72. I then described the exploit that won me the directorship of a commodities fund that M & A had launched—the reward for my astute prediction of the rise in soybean futures during June 1973.

“It was all because the anchovy crop in Peru failed,” I explained.

Tim was incredulous. “Come on, Dan. Now I know you’re pulling my leg.”

“No, honestly, Tim. Breeders all over the world use ground anchovies for livestock fodder in exactly the same
way they use soybeans. The Peruvian fishermen’s misfortune was the Iowa farmers’ windfall. Soybeans rocketed to twelve bucks a bushel. It was phenomenal.”

“No, Father Hogan,” Mr. Alleyn interposed with a grudging compliment, “the real phenomenon was that Danny had us perfectly positioned to reap this windfall.”

I tactfully neglected to mention that shortly after this, against my advice, Pete had put himself on the wrong side of every yo-yo fluctuation in the price of gold and been forced to sell me his birthright, so to speak.

After we had worked for another two hours or so, I excused myself in hopes of catching the five o’clock shuttle. Tim insisted on taking me to the airport in the car the archdiocese had put at his disposal. It was not really an unalloyed gesture of friendship, since I knew full well that I would be interrogated along the way.

Since it was a short journey, he did not waste any time. Abruptly, he ceased to be the confident churchman and hesitatingly inquired, “How’s Deborah, by the way?”

“Fine,” I replied without elaborating.

“I, uh, assume she’s made you an uncle many times over,” he said, still probing.

At this point, I figured the best way to extricate myself would be the hypocritical but effective tale of Deborah’s “tragedy.”

“She’s got one boy,” I said tonelessly. “Her husband died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he replied in a shocked voice.

I could tell he was about to plead for more details when, happily, the Eastern Airlines terminal came into view. He had just enough time to murmur something about giving her condolences when our car glided to a halt, and I hopped out.

I wanted to run straight through those glass doors, but something made me glance back at Tim. He seemed so forlorn and—I guess “helpless” is the word—that I felt a need to comfort him.

“Hey,” I murmured. “Deborah’s a strong woman. She’ll get over it.”

With this I walked away, trying not to think of the ineffably sad look on Timothy’s face.

D
anny’s words had torn open the scar of memory.

The discovery that Deborah had borne a child to another man had been a kind of final, albeit implicit, rejection of his own enduring affection.

In the preceding years, Tim had often conjured up her image, joining her in a world without boundaries—a garden (for that was the literal meaning of “paradise”) where they could walk hand in hand, freely sharing each dimension of their love.

This had been painful enough. But at least there had been the paradoxical comfort of her unattainability. Now his dream of holding her was once again a possibility—a theoretical one, to be sure, but nonetheless a possibility.

And there was more: He still loved her so much that he even wanted to comfort her for the grief of her lost husband.

“Hello, Father Hogan?”

He recognized the voice and could even put a face to it. It was Moira Sullivan, a lay teacher whose Latin class he had visited when he was touring the Sacred Heart Academy in Malden. He had noticed how much the youngsters loved her. There was a gentleness in her manner and a lilt in her voice. She had blond hair.

And yes, he had admitted to himself, she would no doubt have been attractive to any man who had not taken holy vows. If further proof were needed, she wore a wedding ring.

During a luncheon-conference in the Staff Room, she had addressed several questions to him and at other times flatteringly referred to some of his earlier remarks (“As Father Hogan mentioned …”).

Now, some ten days later, she was telephoning him.

“It’s nice to hear from you, Mrs. Sullivan.”

“I just wanted to thank you for the lovely letter you wrote Sister Irene.”

“I meant every word,” Tim assured her. “You’re a wonderful teacher—
ornamentum linguae Latinae.
”

“Oh.…” There was shyness in her voice now. “Urn, anyway, I took the liberty of calling to ask whether you’d been able to get a copy of the new textbook I mentioned—”

“Yes—the Cambridge Latin Course. On your recommendation, I ordered it that very afternoon.”

“Oh.” The disappointment was undisguised. She hesitated. “Did it live up to my rave review?”

“I’m sure it will, but I had to special-order it from Blackwells, so I haven’t actually gotten my hands on it.”

There was a momentary pause before the teacher spoke again.

“In that case I wonder … perhaps you’d like to see my copy. I mean …” Her voice suddenly accelerated. “Could I take the liberty of inviting you to dinner … at my home? I know how busy you are, so if you can’t come, I’ll understand.”

“Not at all,” Tim replied. “I’d very much like to meet your family as well. If I recall correctly you mentioned two daughters.…”

“Yes, they’d be absolutely thrilled if a priest from the chancery came to dinner.” An uneasy silence. And then, “You see, my husband …”

“Does he teach as well?” Timothy inquired cordially.

Another pause. Moira Sullivan’s answer was quiet.
“He’s dead, Father. He was killed in Vietnam eight years ago.”

Consciously at least, Tim saw nothing out of the ordinary. A dinner with this widowed mother would be altogether within the scope of his pastoral duties.

Paperbacks filled the white laminated shelves lining the walls of her Somerville apartment. Tim could not keep from thinking that Moira’s husband had built them himself. Indeed, though she and her two daughters, ten and eleven, were lively and hospitable, the atmosphere was charged with innumerable reminders of her husband’s absence.

Moira talked nervously about schoolwork, her family, and other trivialities of everyday life, which were nonetheless foreign to Tim. Only once or twice did she mention Chuck, and even then referred to him almost in the abstract as “my husband.”

The little girls, though, had not yet mastered the art of social masquerade. Even when they smiled, sadness never left their eyes.

Tim could see they were comforted (for that of course was the purpose of his visit) by the mere fact that he paid attention to the details of their studies, to Ellen’s tales of hockey practice and Susie’s pride at having been chosen for the choir.

They were a close-knit family, united by their loneliness. Tim’s heart went out to them. They were such innocent girls, defenseless in a world that still viewed the offspring of a single parent as somehow defective.

Worse, by some bitter psychological irony the children of divorce were somehow socially more welcome than orphans. It was as if the girls bore some blame for their father’s death—their schoolmates shied away from “catching” their bad luck.

Moira herself, vivacious and pretty, did not deserve the fate dealt her. Yet how many husbandless victims of the Vietnam war had cried in his confessional? And, sadly, the more children, the more tears.

“You must be sick to death of being asked to dinner, Father,” Moira remarked as they were sitting at the table.

“Only when I have to give an after-dinner speech.” Tim smiled. “It’s a pleasure to be off-duty—and in such charming company.”

He winked at the girls, who blushed with delight.

Moira was perceptibly nervous. But she knew both from experience and instinct how to behave as “a wife.” For although Tim was a priest, he was nonetheless the man whose presence transformed their group into a family.

Tim sensed this and was secretly embarrassed and unsettled by the pleasure it gave him.

At nine o’clock Moira disappeared for a few minutes when the girls went to bed and left him with her copy of the Cambridge Latin Course, which he duly perused. He had moved on to browse through her library when she reappeared with coffee.

“You’ve got some fascinating books. I could spend weeks on your theology collection alone,” he said. “I envy you—where do you find the time?”

“Well.” She smiled self-consciously. “As you see it’s still early and the girls are asleep. If you weren’t here I’d probably read for three or four hours.”

Part of Tim sensed the subtext of her words, yet instead of changing the subject heard himself say, “Not every night, I’m sure. I mean, you must have a busy social life.”

Moira answered candidly, without self-pity. “No.”

She paused and then added, “Maybe that’s part of what draws me to the Church. In what you flatteringly called my theology section, I’ve got William James’s
The Varieties of Religious Experience.
His primary definition of religion is man’s way of dealing with solitude.”

“Yes,” Tim acknowledged. “That certainly could apply to the priestly calling.”

He immediately regretted having said something that might misguidedly lead her on. Learned allusions notwithstanding,
he sensed the direction of her thoughts, which he tried to deflect.

“You must miss your husband.”

She replied with bewildering certainty, “No.” Then she explained. “Chuck and I were both kids. Neither of us knew what marriage was. By the time he learned he didn’t like it, we already had the girls, so the only viable option for a nice but immature guy like Chuck was enlisting in the Marines. I hope this doesn’t sound too cynical, Father—”

“Tim. Please call me Tim. And, no, I understand what you’re saying. Sometimes I think we don’t have enough instruction before marriage. After all, it is a kind of frightening leap of faith.”

She looked at him and answered, “Yes. And I imagine you know more about it than the average husband.”

Distracted by a guilty conscience, Tim was caught off guard. Perhaps she sensed his embarrassment and diffused any potential misunderstanding by adding, “I mean, you must counsel dozens of couples every month. You certainly know what a good marriage
isn’t.
”

Tim nodded and smiled at her warmly. It was simply a chaste gesture of affection, but Moira was herself too starved to notice the distinction.

Her tone of voice changed, and he knew instantly that she was speaking to him as a man.

“Ever since I can remember one or another of my friends has had a crush on her priest. I suppose your female parishioners must be in desperate straits.”

Timothy laughed, hoping to reinforce the slender pretext that they were discussing other people.

“Yes, I’m afraid now and then I do encounter an over-enthusiastic teenager.…” His voice trailed off.

She looked at him and whispered, “How about thirty-four-year-old widows?”

Despite himself, he saw the curve of Moira’s breasts beneath her white blouse and was frightened of his own thoughts.

He sensed how much she needed physical comfort.
And was disquieted to think that
he
might, too. It took all his inner strength to prevent them both from losing control. “I’m sure you understand the commitment of a priestly vow.”

“Oh,” she said, blushing. “Have I really come across a man beyond all earthly temptation?”

“Yes,” Tim replied, feeling a qualm of guilt even as he said it.

“God, I feel so embarrassed. Have I offended you? Will you hate me forever for this?”

She had now drawn closer, her face so near that it was a supreme effort for Tim to dull his sensibilities to her beauty. He spoke gently.

“No, Moira. I’m not offended. If it can be of any consolation, I understand in ways I simply can’t explain. I hope we can still be friends.”

She stared at him with admiration.

“Oh, yes. I hope at least for that.”

It had not been easy for Tim, for as a man he could not deny that she was attractive. And yet the priest in him had prevailed. So much so that he felt secure enough to kiss her on the forehead and whisper, “Good night. God bless you, Moira.”

Outside, unable even to turn the ignition, Tim slumped against the steering wheel. Something in him shared the hurt that he had inflicted upon her. And he despised himself for the lie he had told—that as a priest he was above all earthly desire.