But when Gilly was first put into my arms, my heart swelled so much, I could hardly breathe, and, while I would never stop missing my firstborn, I was overcome with love for Gilly, more than I could possibly say.
I didn’t let Gilly out of my sight. And that was exactly how she wanted it. She slept in our room, and when I took a new job at the Maple Street Clinic, only a few blocks from the church, I took Gilly with me. I commandeered an office next to mine, had a door installed between us so that I could watch her all day. Worse yet, I documented her waking and sleeping hours, her appetite and her bodily functions, in my journal. I was keeping a medical chart. I was that terrified that she might for some reason die.
It was nuts, but I forgave myself for being overprotective. And James forgave me, too. Gilly must have approved of the care she was getting, because she kept growing and thriving. I finally exhaled when she was six months old and I let James take her out of the house without my hovering over them.
Meanwhile, media storms continued to rage around our home.
The press knew of Gilly’s birth, and James’s being a married priest with a child added to his colorful history and mine, creating too much human interest to be ignored. It was as if the tiny farm town of Millbrook, Massachusetts, were outlined on the map in red marker pen and reporters had stuck innumerable pins in it.
We’d been married for just over a year and a half on the day I plucked our baby out of her bouncy seat and said to James, “Expect the unexpected.”
“Wait. That’s my line.”
“Yep. I’m just borrowing it. You can have it back later.”
We three dodged the ever-present media vans at the intersection, cut through a lane between two cornfields, and connected up with a side street where I’d parked my car overnight.
During the mystery drive, I told James that our landlord owed money to the bank and that our rent wasn’t covering it. He had decided to sell JMJ.
“I can’t believe this,” James said.
“I negotiated with the bank, and if you agree, I want to pay off the mortgage. We’ll own the church outright.”
“How much is it?”
“I can afford it.”
“Really? Oh. Wow. I should have guessed by now that you are loaded, Brigid.”
He said that without judgment, but, still, he sounded wounded.
“I was waiting for the right time to tell you. Is this the right time?”
“This church. You want it, too?” he asked me.
“Yes, I really do.”
Minutes later, we entered the Springfield Bank and Trust. Mrs. Stanford was waiting for us. She motioned us into chairs in front of her desk and asked to hold Gilly.
“Gilly,” she said, “you are absolutely breathtaking.”
Gilly pinched the nice lady’s nose.
We signed the papers and bought a church, and on the way home, we took the truck into a car wash. Going through that watery tunnel just amazed and delighted Gilly. She laughed, waved her hands, and burbled, making her doting parents simply fall apart.
If I noticed the silver hatchback that seemed to be around the church a lot and that had been two cars in back of us on the way to Springfield, it didn’t register enough for me to even mention it to James.
“We own our home, sweet home,” James said as we headed back to Millbrook. “You’re stuck with me now, girls. Lucky, lucky me.”
Chapter 95
WHEN MADELINE Faulkner became the pastor of a church in Pennsylvania, she was barraged by every type of media attention, from blog articles on both sides of the controversy, to unrelenting network-news pieces. A woman priest was a huge story, and my old school friend Tori Hewitt sent me links to the Italian news coverage of American Catholic heretics.
I was amazed to see our names and faces: James’s, Bishop Reedy’s, Madeline’s, and mine, all of us accused of blasphemy in top newspapers and glossy magazines.
Meanwhile, right here at home, protesters surrounded JMJ and shouted at our parishioners as they came to church. Being at the center of what could turn into mass hysteria made me sick. James was also distraught. He prayed for guidance, and he apologized to the town for the way our presence had disturbed the peace, and he thanked town leaders for their understanding.
In fact, I wasn’t sure the town board had our backs.
One morning, Gilly and I were just yards from the entrance to the Maple Street Clinic when that silver hatchback that I’d noticed peripherally cruised up to the sidewalk and braked hard.
The man in the driver’s seat buzzed down his window and shouted, “Hey! Brigid!”
He was square-faced and flushed, with thinning brown hair and a thick, workingman’s build. I didn’t know him, had never seen him before. I put Gilly behind me, stood between her stroller and the car, and asked the red-faced man, “Who are you? What do you want?”
“You’re doing the work of the devil, Brigid. I know it. God knows it. We’re not going to let you get away with this.”