“Be happy.” He introduced himself to James and said, “Good catch. She’s the best.”
The sad look in Zach’s eyes told me that he still had feelings for me and that this wasn’t the happiest of occasions for him. Just then, James spoke into my ear.
“Look. Coming through the door. I don’t believe it.”
Father Peter Sebastian from the Boston Archdiocese had attended our pretrial meeting in Kyle Richardson’s office, and he had also attended James’s trial. Now, he was at our wedding reception.
Why?
Sebastian was slim and dark eyed, and he looked soulful in his formal vestments. He joined the line, and when he was standing in front of me and James, he said very loudly, “His Eminence Cardinal Cooney sent me to inform you that this marriage isn’t accepted by the Church, and, similarly, your other activities are disgraceful and officially forbidden. This is a heads-up. There will be repercussions, James Aubrey.”
James said, “Only those who wish us well are welcome here, Father.”
“The cardinal will be in touch,” he said. He nodded at me, a sharp, silent condemnation, and when he was gone, his black presence remained.
James had squeezed my hand hard and said, “That bastard. Brigid, he’s the cardinal’s spear carrier. Don’t let him bring us down.”
I said, “No, no, of course not,” but I was so stunned by Sebastian’s pronouncement that even the delicious meal and dancing with my husband failed to undo Cardinal Cooney’s hand-carried warning that was now part of our history.
“He can’t hurt us,” James had said once we were in bed.
I wasn’t so sure. Sebastian had come a long way to confront us in person. Cooney wouldn’t deliver a toothless threat. After James fell asleep, I saw Father Sebastian in my mind. There he was, standing before us on our happiest day, and a feeling of dread came over me like a storm cloud crossing a sunny sky. I opened my mind to God, hoping for clarity or guidance. But I was alone, and not even prayer could drive that darkness away.
Chapter 92
THE STILLNESS of winter was ideal for hunkering down indoors, making a home, and making love with consequences.
I screamed when I saw the two blue bars on the home pregnancy test, and James shouldered open the bathroom door, afraid of—I don’t think he knew what.
“James! Look.”
I showed him the test strip, and I told him what it meant. He grabbed me, lifted me into the air, and told me what a wonderful woman I was.
It was a fantastic moment, and James’s joy over the baby I would be having knit us even closer as we planned for our future family. We had met in a church, married in one, made a baby here, too. I felt triply blessed, and I wanted to try for a grand slam.
I knew that G.S.F. had a limited capacity to love, but we had been in touch. He was dying. I wanted to give him some good news.
I called. I told him, “I’m going to have a baby.”
He said drily, “Congratulations, Dorothy.”
I couldn’t tell if he was being snide or if he actually thought that I was my mother. He may have been confused because of the drugs, or maybe he was just lost in the past.
“It’s Brigid, Dad. I’ll send you pictures after the baby comes,” I said.
A week later, Kyle Richardson called to say he’d been notified that G.S.F. had died.
I sat for a long time at my desk in the rectory, remembering my father. The bean-sized place where I had quarantined thoughts of him burst open and flooded my mind. I was both in the rectory and in my house on Jackson Street as a teen. My mother was in a drugged sleep in their bedroom, and George and I were in the kitchen, where he was reading my essay on epic poetry.
His criticism was scathing. I was just fourteen, two grades ahead of other kids my age, still fearful of his enormous, condescending presence. But I stood up for myself that day.
“You’re being too hard on me, Dad. Don’t forget. I’ve been getting As.”
He had taken a pen and written across the entire face of the paper, C–. Sloppy thinking. G. S. Fitzgerald.
I wouldn’t be able to turn the paper in the next morning. I would have to retype and probably rewrite it again. I shouted, “I hate you!”
And he said, “Hate me all you want. Someone has to give you standards. You need something to push against, Snotface.” And then he quoted Nietzsche, saying, “‘What does not kill me makes me stronger.’”
I was furious. After telling him that I hated him, I shouted, “I wish you were dead!”
I didn’t want to remember that, but now that he was dead, I had no defense against it.
I remembered that I rewrote the paper. I got an A+. I didn’t tell him. George gave me plenty to push against until the day my mother died and I finally freed myself.
But had I?