No Greater Love Page 16

  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.

  These and other highly controversial matters troubled Eileen to her core.

  This led to many a heated reasoning session with her husband, to no conclusion. If anything, Eileen’s protestations drove her husband into a sort of underground indoctrination of the boy. At best, Eileen could only attempt to counter the questionable
teachings and principles of her husband.

  The result: a very confused young lad. He loved his parents, both of them equally, but in different ways.

  And then there was church.

  Generally, regular church attendance is associated with women more than men. This pattern was broken decisively in the case of Bill Cody.

  At one time, a young Bill Cody had been a faithful altar boy, serving Mass daily. He was a shoo-in for the seminary. Although he eventually dropped out, he was proud of having spent those years in training for the priesthood.

  That’s where Al was headed from the time his father took him to Mass, explained everything, and gently but firmly let him know that the father would consider himself the luckiest and proudest person on earth if his son became a priest.

  The pressure was building.

  The mother could see clearly the pitfalls. Cataclysms were about to rattle the present Church structure. The priesthood, once one of the world’s most stable vocations, would be shaken to its foundation. The hierarchy was shoring up the floodgates.

  But the day was coming, Eileen knew, when things would have to change sharply. And the traditional male priesthood would become obsolete.

  Perhaps even worse than what might become of this sublime vocation was the fact that Al was being brainwashed. That was a harsh term, but it accurately described what Eileen saw in what her husband was doing to their son.

  Eileen Cody, the product of a miserable childhood, desired above all that her son, her only child, lead a happy and fulfilled life. But how could he? He was being given no choice in the form and function of that life. While she, his mother, was forced to sit by as her husband pushed the boy down a conceivably disastrous path.

  Of course, “good” Catholic parents—especially mothers—wanted a priest son. But “good” Catholic parents usually had large families—sons and daughters to provide grandchildren, and comfort in one’s old age. Less usually did an only child become a priest.

  And how many young men who didn’t really want to be priests served time as they guiltily waited for the deaths of their parents to free them from a priesthood that they had entered only to please those parents. Was that what Al faced? Would he suffer through years of priestly misery, only to finally leave, a shell of a human being, on his father’s death?

  Time, now, was perilously short. Everything she had tried had failed. Not one of the dozens of irons in the fire had worked.

  The proposed Easter vacation retreat, she had to admit, was a last ditch attempt. Bill had seen through it, as inevitably she had known he would. And he had just shot it down. There was no getting around him. She had tried every which way. He was the power who was driving this disaster forward to the rocks.

  There was no doubt about it, her back was to the wall. If something drastic didn’t happen soon, Al would make a lifelong commitment. He would be doomed.

  If there was no way around Bill, there had to be a path through him.

  She had to eliminate Bill. The question was how.

  Eileen Cody would sleep very little this night.

  Eighteen

  Patty Donnelly was in the sacristy vesting.

  In a gesture intended to mollify the conservatives, some of whom inevitably would be in attendance, she would wear a traditional set of vestments.

  She kissed the amice before letting it lightly rest on the back of her head, then tucked it around the neck and tied it after wrapping the strip around her body and back again.

  Next she donned the alb, the long white gown that covered all but her head, hands, and shoes. The cincture tied around her waist let her adjust the alb so it would hang evenly.

  The maniple she draped across her left forearm and pinned to the alb.

  The stole traditionally marked a person’s stature in the Roman culture of the Caesars. Until relatively recently in the Church, deacons wore the stole draped over one shoulder. Priests wore it over both shoulders, but crossed in front. Bishops wore it over both shoulders but hanging straight down in front, indicating that bishops had the “fullness” of the priesthood.

  Patty wore the stole over one shoulder. She was about to become a priest, but she was still, as they termed it now, a deacon in transition.

  Lastly, she slipped over her head the chasuble. The outer garment in ancient Rome. The back of this vestment was pinned up.

  It was time for the procession to begin. The organ thundered and the choir sang. It was most impressive.

  As she entered, the congregation in the crowded cathedral stood and applauded. She had never been more happy.

  The ordination Mass began. After the welcoming prayers, Bishop McNiff, as rector of the seminary, testified that she was worthy.

  Cardinal Boyle, as ordaining bishop, in a loud voice asked if anyone knew of any reason why this candidate should not be ordained. It was meant ordinarily as a rhetorical question. In this company there was an anxious moment of silence, in which Patty’s many friends hoped and prayed no one would speak.

  But a voice rose from the rear of the cathedral.

  Those close to the sanctuary thought they heard someone shouting, “I object! I object!” followed by confusing sounds of tumult. A contingent of police wrestled the protester out the narthex doors to the sidewalk of Woodward Avenue, where he was arrested and carted off.

  Gradually the interruption was played out. Everyone wondered who the interloper was. Those who’d managed to get a brief look at him described him as rather tall, a bit heavy, with straight black hair. He could have been that deacon, Bill Page. He was dragged out so rapidly that it was difficult to make an identification.

  In any case, the ordination ceremony settled down and proceeded.

  Patty knelt at the top step of the altar. Cardinal Boyle put both hands on her head, pressed down lightly, and held that position for a few moments. “Thus,” read the commentator, “in sacred silence is the sacred character of the priesthood conferred.” Then, one by one, all the priests in attendance took turns placing their hands on her head, sharing their priesthood with hers.

  One by one the powers of her calling were spelled out publically.

  The stole was crossed over her other shoulder.

  The words attributed to Jesus, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. Whose sins you shall retain, they are retained,” demonstrated her power to absolve.

  She was invited to offer Mass, to offer sacrifice for the living as well as for the dead, in the name of the Lord.

  Finally, the pin was removed that had held the back of her chasuble.

  She was a priest forever, sang the choir, “according to the order of Melchizedek,” the King of Salem, who, as priest, uniquely offers bread and wine in sacrifice. He moves in and out of the Bible in three verses.

  Patty was completely fulfilled.

  The ordination Mass continued. Now it had become concelebrated by Cardinal Boyle, Bishop McNiff, and all the priests gathered in the sanctuary—including the Reverend Donnelly.

  The prayers moved the ceremony through the offertory into the Canon of the Mass when the new priest for the first time pronounced the words that Jesus had spoken at the Last Supper: “This is my body. This is my blood.”

  In a short while, everyone was urged to share a greeting of peace. And for the first time at a Mass, Patty was at peace, complete peace. Her life was no longer incomplete. She no longer yearned for something that everyone told her she could never have. She had it. And no one could take it from her.

  After the Communion service, the ordination Mass would have come to a swift conclusion if not for a surprising development.

  Another—and, as far as Patty was concerned—unexpected ceremony began.

  Bishop McNiff climbed into the pulpit and read from an official-looking document. It came from Rome, the Vatican. It was the announcement that the Reverend Patricia Donnelly was named titular bishop of the Bronx, New York, and an auxiliary bishop of Detroit.

  Once again
Cardinal Boyle read a notice informing anyone who had an objection to this appointment, to speak up now or forever hold his or her peace.

  This time several voices were raised in protest.

  Once again the police whipped into activity and the objectors were carried from the cathedral and carted off in the paddy wagon.

  Members of the second procession took their places surrounding Patty. Another ceremony had begun.

  Patty was led back to the altar and told to kneel. She had to be coached at every turn, since she’d had no reason to anticipate this development.

  Someone held a book of the Gospels and rested it on the back of her bowed head. Unintelligible words were spoken.

  Someone else came with a vessel of oil. He emptied the oil on her head, later necessitating a shampoo to degrease her hair.

  Quite obviously, it was time for something else to happen. But no one seemed to know what.

  Cardinal Boyle looked around, his heavy eyebrows nearly meeting at the bridge of his nose. Clearly, he was angry. “The miter!” he demanded, in what for him was a loud voice. “Who has the miter?”

  “I gave it to Mickey—the altar boy,” one of the priests in attendance said. “I gave him strict instructions not to put it down under any circumstances. The only one he could give it to was you, Your Eminence. So that you could put the miter on Bishop Donnelly’s head. I don’t know where Mickey is, but I’m pretty sure he’s still holding the miter.”

  There followed an unorganized search for the altar server, while the congregation buzzed about what was happening.

  Then a nun shrieked. She had found Mickey, his cassock raised and his pants dropped. He was sitting on a toilet. He hadn’t exactly put the miter down. He had put it on. He was wearing it.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” he apologized, “but I had to wipe.”

  Someone snatched up the miter. It was not the nun; she was frantically searching for a priest to hear her confession.