“Rosary is sick right now,” I reminded my boss’ boss of the fact as gently as I could. I called her by her first name, since that’s what any normal son-in-law would do.
The smile fell off his face. “I know that. But she’s not really even truly sick. She told me about her panic attack. It was just a false alarm.”
“You two already talked?” My heart was in my throat. What did they tell each other? Were we screwed already?
Koels expression turned defensive. “I passed her this morning in the hallway and introduced myself. I didn’t know she was Faith’s mother then you see, I just wanted to say hello.” He looked put out that he was explaining any of this to me, but also excited to share it with me. He was behaving more like a teenager than a grandfather. I frowned at him and his expression shifted.
I felt the warning before he needed to make it clearer. I changed my tactic. I nodded. “Oh, I see. I only ask because she’d probably be mortified to know that Faith’s boss had seen her in a hospital gown.” I smiled slyly at him. “Especially, considering that you’re such an eligible bachelor.”
Koels mouth dropped into a soft ‘O’ shape and then snapped shut. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” He even had the good manners to blush. “I hope I didn’t make her uncomfortable.”
He seriously had a crush on her. It was enough to even trump his ego.
This entire situation felt surreal. I wished that Faith were here to witness it. She was just a few short feet away, but she was missing it completely.
“Of course, I know you wouldn’t want to embarrass her,” I was saying as smoothly as I could, “but given her health, perhaps this week isn’t the best for you two to have a formal first meeting. How about we arrange something in a couple of weeks?” I put a look on my face that I hoped conveyed a hopeful but measured excitement. “She’s a very shy and private woman and would be embarrassed to know you’d seen her sleeping, too.” I had no idea if that was true, but it had the desired effect on Koels. “She’ll want to make sure her hair and makeup are the way she likes them, you know.” That bit was probably true. “Perhaps you could join us for a family dinner sometime soon?” That bit was a huge lie.
Koels expression cleared. I’d mollified him. “Yes, I think that would be perfect.”
I nodded. “I know Rosary is going to go visit relatives in New York soon.” I was making all this up as I said it. “But once she gets back, we should plan something.”
The plot came together in my racing mind. It was going to be a very long visit. Mrs. McNamara was going to realize how much she missed living in New York. In fact, Mrs. McNamara was going to choose to move permanently back to New York in order to care for some aging relatives. It was all perfectly plausible.
“Sounds like a date,” Koels said, grinning. “I’ll get out of here before she sees me.” He straightened and then picked at his tie self-consciously. “I want to make a good impression too.” He started retreating, grumbling to himself. “Definitely not this tie for our date...” He turned back to me. “I won’t be forgetting about this. I want to see her again.”
I nodded and then exhaled hard in relief when he turned the corner. I felt like I’d just run a five-minute mile. That was one bullet dodged. For now. Only now, I needed to tell Faith that her mom had a new, particularly persistent suitor.
20
Faith
“I met someone, you know.” My mom smiled slyly at me from her discharge-required wheelchair as the final paperwork was being processed. “I met a very nice doctor this morning when I was coming back from the chapel.” Her expression was excited. She was practically vibrating with energy. For someone who’d needed to be sedated yesterday, she really seemed to have bounced back. Literally. She was literally bouncing.
My reply was lukewarm. “Oh? Was it Dr. Ortega that you met?” I asked. According to her chart, she’d been treated by one of the Locum Tenens physicians after Dr. Ortega ruled out a heart attack. Thankfully, that meant the visiting doctor wouldn’t know any of the hospital gossip.
“No.” She continued to shift back in forth in her seat with nervous energy. “He’s a very nice doctor. And good-looking too! We got to talking about the chapel’s rose window and he really knows a lot about gothic revival architecture in modern Catholic churches.”
I frowned at her, catching on. He was a doctor. A Catholic doctor. A good-looking, Catholic doctor. Whoever this man was, he would have ticked all her boxes. I didn’t need to be set up with any more nice, good-looking Catholic doctors at the moment. I was already fake-married to, and now sleeping with one. There was a zero percent chance I could handle any more man drama at the moment. I didn’t know what to do with the man drama I had.
“That’s nice.” My voice was blank. I really didn’t want to deal with my mom trying to set me up with any of my coworkers. Every date she’d ever arranged for me had been disastrous. Besides, the sooner we could get her out of this hospital, the better. I needed time. Time to think about what last night with Eric had meant, and time to think about what it might mean if I did it again.
My mom blinked at my lukewarm response. Her enthusiasm was undeterred. “His name is Marty Koels.”
Wait… what? She couldn’t be wanting to set me up with Dr. Koels. He was old enough to be my father. No.
The stars whirled overhead and realigned my universe.
My mom is into Dr. Koels. And his first name, apparently, is Marty.
“That’s nice,” I repeated, this time in shock. My mom beamed at me.
In the eleven years since my dad’s death, my mom had displayed no interest in dating or remarrying.
Zip.
Zero.
Zilch.
Apparently, all it took was one look at Koels to restart her libido. Gross. Not only did I really not want to think too much about my mom’s libido, but her taste in men was… well, not really that bad, I suppose. Koels had probably been a looker back in his prime (the eighties). He was well past his salad days, but I suppose if you liked a more mature look.
“Do you know Dr. Koels?” My mom was asking.
I nodded warily. “Yes. He’s the chief medical officer for the hospital.”
“I thought he was a doctor.” She looked confused.
“He is,” I explained. “But he also oversees all the doctors and nurses from a medical perspective.”
“Oh! So, you’re saying he’s a CEO and a doctor.” She now sounded appropriately impressed.
I bit back a smile. Sort of. “Well, the hospital has a CEO too, but he does mostly financial things. It’s more like Dr. Koels is just the supervisor of all the other doctors.”
She nodded. “So, you work for him?”
“Indirectly.” My mind was spinning.
“Hmm.” My mom was looking at me curiously. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t ask you to get your boss’ telephone number for me.” From zero interest in men to wanting one’s phone number. Had her anxiety attack burst a fever blister in her brain? Had she been carrying so much fear and pain that catharsis was required to snap her out of it? I’d seen enough abscesses to know that sometimes the only way to healing is to lance and drain a wound, but I struggled to make sense of her reactions, and her question.
No mom, you definitely shouldn’t ask me for my boss’ number. Even through my shock, I smirked at her. “I appreciate that.”
She shook her head. “Too bad.”
I felt a hot pang of guilt. Eleven years was a long time to be alone. It would be just my luck that the one man my mom decided was worthy of her attention would be the one man that I would have to do everything in my power to keep her from. The idea made me feel unexpectedly angry.
It’s not like I wanted her to spend the rest of her life alone. Or for her to spend the rest of her life living with me. I’d tried several times to get her to try online dating, or regular dating, or just getting out of the house more often. Nothing had worked until now. This wasn’t fair for anyone. I even felt the slightest bit bad for Koels. But the
only person I had to blame was myself. Well, Eric too. But mostly me.
“Ok, time to go,” Lucy said, handing the stack of papers back from over the desk. I snapped out of my introspection. “Have a good day Mrs. McNamara.”
Just having Lucy so close to my mom, even though she was just doing her regular job, made me nervous. At any moment, she could let something slip. My life was balanced on a knife’s edge that chatty Lucy could destroy without even knowing it.
“Alright, thanks Lucy,” I mumbled, pushing my mom’s wheelchair swiftly away. “See you later.”
“You’re in an awful hurry,” my mom said absently. She was looking around the waiting area like she was hoping Dr. Koels would appear. Thankfully, Eric must have successfully distracted him. I owed him one.
My mom was going through her discharge papers in the parking garage when a text came in.
Eric Carter [10:02 a.m.]: Koels’ has an enormous crush on your mom.
Faith McNamara [10:02 a.m.]: Oh no. Well that’s just great. Because my mom has an even more enormous crush on Koels.
Eric Carter [10:03 a.m.]: Really?
Faith McNamara [10:04 a.m.]: Apparently, they hit it off this morning.
Eric Carter [10:05 a.m.]: That was what I heard too.
Faith McNamara [10:06 a.m.]: What do we do? This could ruin everything.
Eric Carter [10:07 a.m.]: Leave it to me. I have a plan.
Faith McNamara [10:10 a.m.]: Do I get to know about the plan?
Eric Carter [10:12 a.m.]: Of course. I’ll explain it all over dinner tomorrow night. Eight?
21
Eric
Maybe it was a cheap trick to tell Faith I had a plan when I really had more of hunch, but it got Faith to agree to another date with me. I spent the rest of the afternoon and the following day developing a plan. I was in the midst of scheming on my break when my sister Mary called.
“What’s this I hear about you being married?!” her voice was shrill.
She must have finally read my email. She’s been on vacation in the Caribbean over the holidays, but I knew she’d eventually get to it. I’d explained everything in writing to her because I knew trying to do it over the phone might result in disaster.
“Which part from my message was confusing?” I asked warily. This was not off to a good start.
“All of it.” My imperious older sister Mary, four years my senior and the bossiest woman alive, sounded like she wanted to reach through the phone and smack me. I loved her dearly and valued her advice, but the woman could be really challenging sometimes. It didn’t help that she was currently pregnant and extra-hormonal. “What’s the matter with you?”
Many, many things.
“I’ve got it all under control.” I had ample practice in making my voice sound soothing and competent. If there was any time to use my ‘doctor voice’ it was when I was calming Mary down. Usually it worked.
Today wasn’t one of those times. “You demonstrably do not.” She made a dismissive noise through the phone. “You should be getting that annulment right now. You should have called me immediately. I would have gotten it done in one day. The legal annulment, the nullity submission to the diocese, all of it. One day. Of course, they take months to even agree to take your nullity case…” she trailed off in annoyance. The Catholic church had been against divorce since forever. They weren’t exactly eager to let people out of marriages. From her previous cases, I knew the legal part would take a day and the Church part would take a year (maybe two).
“I should have tracked you down in St. Lucia and ruined your vacation with this?”
“Yes! I would have flown back to the states on the first flight to help you.”
It was true. Mary would move heaven and earth to protect me, her little brother. In her mind, I was still a baby. I bit back a sarcastic remark.
“We’ll get the annulment eventually,” I told her, trying to sound reasonable and mature. “We’re just holding off until we get the jobs.”
“I hope you’re using the royal ‘we’ and not talking about this girl like she isn’t in this for anything but the money.”
“We’re both in it for the money.” I sighed. “The whole point of this is to get the jobs.”
“No. Eric. You know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, I did. Our family had been rich enough for long enough that it had been drilled into my head that romantic partners would be interested in me for money, rather than for me. The net result of all that education was that I’d simply decided to keep that information to myself until it was absolutely necessary to tell my girlfriends. So far, it had never become absolutely necessary in any relationship I’d ever had.
“I know what you mean, but Faith doesn’t,” I told Mary. “She just wants her job. It’ll fund her education.”
“So, will Faith’s lavish alimony payments.” Her voice was hard. “Even if she doesn’t know how much family money you have, the fact that you’re a doctor is enough of an incentive for her to scam you.”
I shook my head in frustration. “Why do you have to view this all so negatively?”
“Because you’re being naïve, Eric.”
“Not everything is about money.”
“Sure. But this is. You’ve admitted this is.”
“Ok. But not in the way you think. Faith isn’t plotting to defraud me.”
“You do realize that getting an annulment through the Catholic Church isn’t easy, right? They make it difficult for a reason. The legal part is simple enough, but even if you get the legal part done now, the annulment might not be granted through the Church. The longer you wait, the worse it will be.”
“I’m not sure you realize how little that means to me. It means much more to Faith than it means to me.” I hadn’t been to mass since I moved out for college and had no plans to start again, ever. I lived a decent, moral life dedicated to saving lives. That ought to satisfy the powers that be much more than appearing in the pews on Sunday or whether St. Peter had me as ‘married’ or ‘unmarried’ on his list when/if I showed up dead.
“And you don’t think its fishy that someone who claims to care about what the Catholic Church thinks of her marriage would be ok keeping up this lie?”
“No, I don’t. I know exactly zero Catholics that are one hundred percent on board with all the dogma. There are too damn many rules to follow them all. Faith’s just doing the best she can, and when the time comes we’re going to present a perfectly adequate case for the annulment to both the legal and Church authorities.” Just having to explain this again, and to an expert on the subject, felt annoying. Mary knew I really didn’t care much about the spiritual aspects of any of this. I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“If she’s really so pious, she should immediately want to get the annulment.”
Then it was clear. She was trying to make Faith out as hypocrite. I was beginning to get seriously miffed about Mary’s attitude towards Faith. “If you’re really so pious, you shouldn’t be judging her. You haven’t met her. You’ve seen weirder cases like this in your time, haven’t you?”
She was silent for a moment before replying. She knew I was right. We talked about her divorce cases sometimes and this was ridiculously pedestrian by comparison. Catholic Church annulments were no easy prize, either, but there were circumstances that qualified, and this was one of them. “Eric, I’m protecting you, not judging her.” Then she laughed a little, bitter laugh. “And I’m not pious. The last time I checked, I’m pregnant out of wedlock for the third time.”
That thing I told Mary about not following all the dogma? That was true for all Catholics. Including me, her, Faith, and the other one billion Catholics on the planet. It’s what gave us all that famous Catholic guilt in the first place. Well, that and our mothers.
Which is exactly what Mary seemed to think she was sometimes—my mother. “If protecting me is really what this is about, then work with me here and listen to me. Faith is not looking for a free ride. She ju
st wants to be able to fund her schooling and get a better job. That’s the same thing that I want.”
“I don’t see why you can’t get the legal annulment now. You should be protecting yourself legally and financially.”
I sighed. Faith and I had been through this topic, too. “Because the Church is going to judge our whole paper trail when they make a decision on the annulment. They interview witnesses. And we got married by the Bishop. Believe it or not, I’ve listened to you when we’ve talked about your annulment cases in the past. I also looked the process up myself. If we annul the legal part first and then leave the Church part for later, it could complicate things. We want to present the clearest, most concise case for annulment possible. We got married when unable to really consent, thought about what that would mean for us over a reasonable amount of time, and will then be petitioning to have it made void. That’s a clear case for annulment. Tell me any of that is not true.”
Silence followed my pronouncement. Finally, she sighed. “I’m just not understanding why you’re doing any of this.” She made a little, frustrated noise. “I feel like you’ve concocted a plan that is going to benefit her a lot more than it benefits you.”
“I had to talk her into this.”
“You clearly like her too much to be giving me any objective information. Are you sleeping with her in the meantime? Because I’d really advise against it.”
My sister and I generally didn’t discuss our sex lives with one another. It was one of the few boundaries we’d always successfully maintained. “Um, none of your business, Mary.”
“That’s a yes.”
“Actually, it’s a ‘none of your business’.”
Her tone was superior. “Whatever you say. Don’t worry, I’ll lie to the bishop for you when the time comes.” She would, too. Mary was always on my side, even when I didn’t deserve it.
“The funny thing about all this is that I think you’d really like her if you met her.”
A Bad Case of You Page 11
