No Greater Love (21 page)

“Molly Cronin?”

“She switched sides. She always votes with you. But not tonight.”

“Who cares? As we learned, the vote means nothing.”

He pushed off his loafers and let his feet luxuriate in the carpet. “Oh, the vote will mean something.”

“Tell me.”

“Mary O'Connor will publish the minutes of the meeting in the bulletin. The parishioners will read about the Folk Mass. They'll read about the vote. And for the first time for most of them, they'll know that their council is a paper tiger.

“I think when they see how close the vote was and that we won only to be vetoed by the pastor, their reaction will be interesting, to say the least.”

“I think you're wrong, Bill.”

He smiled mirthlessly. “Nothing strange about that, is there, darling? You always think I'm wrong.”

“It's not so much that you're always wrong. It's more that you're so unbelievably bullheaded. Once you make up your mind on something, it's damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead.”

“You exaggerate beyond all reality.”

“Oh? How about our son, for instance?”

“Please!”

“Do you ever wonder if Al really wants to be a priest?”

“Don't be silly. Of course he does.”

“How could anyone tell? You hardly give him room to breathe!”

“Eileen, we've been through this before. And I've got work to do.”

“Sure, that's your out every time we get close to actual communication: You've got work to do. You've got a case to prepare. You're late for a meeting.”

“For the love of God, Eileen, the kid has been in the seminary for nearly eight years. That's time for the candidate and the faculty to be sure that the vocation is real. I know: I've been through it.”

“Then how come priests leave? When you were in there, there was more time—four years more. And after twelve years, some priests still left. According to you, the more time spent trying out the idea of being a priest, the more certain everyone is. But priests leave. To me, that means that even though Al's been in the seminary eight years, maybe he's not sure.”

“That's nonsense!”

“Is it? It's not a case of
Al
‘
s
being sure.
You're
sure for him. You have been since he was an infant. If you had your way, you'd have had him ordained as soon as they cleaned him up after birth. You couldn't—or didn't—make it. But your son would.”

He waved both arms, as if shooing flying insects. “You claim we don't communicate. That's because every time we talk we disagree. We reach an impasse. Like the one we're at now. I say Al's freely chosen to be a priest. The faculty agrees or he wouldn't be this close to ordination. And don't give me this stuff about priests leaving. Every profession has its failures.

“What's the matter with you, Eileen? You're on the verge of being the mother of a priest. A priest's mother. You're supposed to glory in that title. You're Irish. Irish women are famous for wanting a priest son. You act like it's a curse!”

“It's as simple as it possibly could be: I want my boy to do what he wants to do. I want him to be a success—but in the field
he
chooses.”

“And”—he sighed deeply—“if that field is the priesthood …?”

“How will he know?”

“If there's any doubt in Al's mind,
you
put it there. All you do is confuse him.”

Eileen turned and walked toward the bedroom. Then she turned back toward her husband. She spoke as if it were a last-ditch effort. “Look, Bill, there's still a little time. He'll have Easter vacation. Why don't we send Al to a kind of retreat during Easter week?”

“A retreat! He doesn't get enough of that in the seminary?”

“I found this program—now, don't get your back up, Bill. It's a program run by a group of psychologists at a resort and clinic just outside Traverse City. It specializes in assisting people in resolving conflicts. It's got a great reputation for helping people who have a hard time making up their minds. We could send him up there. Give him this last opportunity to make up his mind. In solitude for a change.”

He looked at his wife for a long moment. As if he were seeing her or something about her for the very first time. “What can I say that will finish this topic for the last time? Al has made up his mind. He's going to be a priest. That's it. Final. Bottom line. I'm certainly not going to send him off to where a bunch of quacks mess with his mind, hopelessly confusing him. He's going to be a priest. And anyone who stands in his way will answer to me. Is that clear enough?”

Eileen didn't respond. She turned and walked into the bedroom. She closed the door tightly. After a moment, there was a click as she turned the lock.

Bill shook his head.

This was not the first time that a locked door had stood between them. The first few times he had talked his way through the lock. Once he actually broke the door down—and badly hurt his shoulder in the process.

That was a long time ago. In recent years he had grown more stoic. Besides, a common bed no longer solved many disagreements or offered much pleasure. And the bed in the guest room was comfortable.

He took his briefcase to his desk in the den to finalize the material for tomorrow's trial.

He dropped a couple of ice cubes into a glass, poured two to three fingers of Dewar's scotch, and topped the glass with water.

He would nail that stupid son-of-a-bitch judge to the wall. But, he reminded himself, it all must be accomplished using the language of diplomacy.

He gave not another thought to Eileen—or to her assertions.

Al would be a priest. That was that, Al worshiped his father; Bill knew that. It was only natural that the son would be attracted to a calling, a vocation favored by the father. But that alone was not enough to motivate a boy to dedicate his entire life to that vocation. The priesthood would demand everything Al had to offer. His priesthood would be the very air he breathed throughout life and into eternity. Al knew that. Bill had made sure he did. It was just impossible for the young man to invest his entire life in a most demanding vocation simply to please his father.

Al wanted to be a priest. Al would be a priest. And let anyone who blocked his path beware.

Eileen put the book aside. She had read one page three times, and couldn't remember a word it said. She turned off the light and pulled up the quilt.

The night lights of the city played on the ceiling. She lay on her back and fought against thought. But she couldn't turn off her mind.

She was convinced this whole thing with Al was a horrible mistake. How could it be otherwise; her son majored in doubt.

She thought once again of her own life.

Her father, infinitely proud of his Irish ancestry, had considered himself God's gift to everyone—men and women alike. Her mother, also Irish, but in a lower key, might have settled for his being God's gift to her alone.

Dad's appearances at home were a matter of speculation at best. Work was over at five-thirty weekday afternoons. His earliest arrival home was never before eight in the evening.

The hours between were spent in the pub, where he and his chums would drink much, if not all, that had been earned that day.

These absences should not be confused with the midnight homecomings. Not to mention the nights when there was no arrival at all.

In any of these scenarios, there inevitably followed seemingly endless recriminations, loud and angry, frequently leading to violence.

Each morning, if he had indeed come home at any time the previous night, Dad would wake bleary-eyed and unsure of what had happened the evening before. He would shave and shower, put on his most charming Irish smile, and expect to begin the day with a clean slate.

Hardly ever was that to happen. Mother would greet him with last night's evidence. Lipstick of varying shades, suggesting more than one participant in the night's revels. Or semen stains. Or blood. Or torn clothing. Or condoms in his wallet.

Little Eileen, watching her mother in action, gained almost all the knowledge she might have needed for a career as a private eye. Hers was not a nurturing home.

Before the ink on her high school diploma was dry, she was out of the house and engaged in a series of barely gainful employment.

Finally, after scrimping and occasionally going hungry, she saved enough to enroll in the University of Detroit dental hygiene course. It was not beyond imagination that she might meet a dental student and that they might hit it off.

While dental hygienists did fairly well as far as income, dentists for the most part did fabulously. And what could be wrong with that? She had tried it poor; it was her turn to try it rich.

However, as it happened, she met a lawyer! Another student, who studied law in a neighboring building affiliated with U-D.

They courted. They married.

Her private vow as she entered their life together was to give however many children they would produce a secure home. A home free of loud, undisguised rancor.

In this she was helped along by her husband.

It simply was not in his disposition to try any of the tricks her father had. Eileen didn't have to microscopically investigate him or his clothing. He saw to it that she could depend on his being where he was supposed to be.

His income was more than adequate for their needs. Eileen continued her courses at U-D. Then she became pregnant.

Bill could not have been more solicitous. He encouraged her to drop her classes, at least for the foreseeable future.

She had gone from one of the world's most dysfunctional families into the hope of a career. Then into a marriage happier than she could have anticipated. And now, she was fulfilled: She would be a mother.

Eileen had her baby.

Then things began going downhill. There was the terrible and frightening word
cancer.
And major surgery. Followed by uncertainty: Had they found and removed every bit of the cancer?

Relief. The prognosis was only slightly guarded. She would lead a normal life, with one drawback: She would be barren.

This would not have been so crushing, but for two developments.

Bill began treating her as a “thing,” an object of his pleasure. The previous tenderness was gone. Their sexual relations bordered on the mechanical. There was no genuine sense of love. No play to the foreplay. Sex now had little meaning for her. Kisses, hugs were memories. She sensed it clearly: Theirs was a relationship that was traveling in one direction only—toward a crash. All because she was no longer a baby machine, merely a pleasure outlet.

The other occurrence was even more subtle, since it developed over a much longer period of time.

It began with Bill's insistence that their child, Albert, be baptized at the earliest opportunity.

Eileen considered herself a practicing Catholic, though somewhat eclectically picking and choosing and practicing what she considered the best to come out of the Vatican Council. One of whose teachings had relaxed the necessity for speed to the baptismal font. But their baby was healthy. There was no reason to fear the rite could be physically harmful. So the second Sunday after birth—ten days, actually—Albert was christened.

At first Eileen was fascinated by her husband's absorption with their son. There was nothing Bill would not do for the infant, including diaper changings and staying up through the night when Albert was colicky or teething.

As far as Eileen was concerned, all this was unalloyed good. Just the opposite of life with her father.

But something else was building. It was a metaphorical wall between her and Albert. As far as she could tell, there was nothing deliberately malicious about the wall. But her husband was definitely building it.

Call it a sort of breakdown in communication between husband and wife. Bill was taking Albert and running with him absent any explanation or consultation.

Eileen had by far the major share of time with Albert. Weekdays during Bill's working hours, Al existed in his mother's loving world. Even when Al started kindergarten, Eileen had him on his way to school and on his return. But evenings and weekends, when work did not interfere, it was father and son doing things together.

Eileen was not jealous. Far from it. She felt blessed compared with many of her friends who were golf, sailing, football, baseball, etc., widows.

However, there were hints of trouble.

Such as: when Bill took Al to the firing range and introduced him to guns and rifles of almost every make and kind. Or when he taught his son that while it was not a good idea to kill animals just because they happened to be inconvenient occasionally, still, they had no rights and were on earth solely for the use and benefit of mankind. Or when he suggested that people of color might better separate themselves from white people, even though all were fully human with equally immortal souls.