“Different times,” Chucky mumbled.
“Not a chance, Daddy,” she said with a happy laugh. “Jamie would disown me if I did. Besides, being a Chicago Democrat is part of my identity! When I run for political office I’ll run as a Democrat!”
Before anyone could comment on that, the Crazy O’Malleys began to arrive, carrying food, drink, and musical instruments. The good April and Vangie, Peg and Vince and their kids, Jane and Ted McCormack and their kids, Father Ed, Monsignor Raven, Jimmy and Seano, who had been sidetracked by Vince, and then Kev and Maria Elena.
April Rosemary and Kevin stared at each other for a moment. They had been on opposite sides in the war. Or had they really? Who knew? Who cared?
He embraced her.
“Sis, welcome home!”
She broke down completely and sobbed in his arms. He held her tightly.
Well, that was over!
She hugged Maria Elena and congratulated her on the baby, who was just becoming visible. No problem there either.
I glanced at the good April, who had put on her cat-and-canary smile. Yes, she was the spy within the family.
My elder daughter, I reflected, may look like me. She has her father’s charm, however, and can turn it on full force when she wants to. She worked the room like a polished precinct captain.
Her first encounter with Carlotta was initially tense. In her businesslike second-year-law-school suit, my niece tried to look distant and superior. Then April Rosemary turned on all her charm. Her cousin melted.
“Same old April Rosemary,” Carlotta whispered to me. “Pure charisma.”
The boys were into bebop these days, though they would never threaten the reputations of John Coltrane or the Bird. My two daughters kicked off their shoes and danced with the band, to the enthusiastic applause of the crowd.
As the music and singing continued, April Rosemary seemed to wilt. A wistful glaze spread over her face. She’s thinking about all she missed.
I followed her into the kitchen as she carried out a stack of dirty plates. She leaned against the fridge, her whole body sagging.
“Kind of overwhelming, isn’t it?” I said gently.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Mom … Yes, the Crazy O‘Malleys, no, we Crazy O’Malleys are overwhelming! … I thought it would be so difficult. Now it seems like I was here only yesterday.”
“And you’ve provided them with another excuse for a party!”
“There’s so much to talk about, Mom. Right now I’m so dragged out …”
“There’s all the time in the world, dear, for the talking.”
“I’m so sorry, so very, very sorry.”
I touched her shoulder.
“It’s taken me a long time in life, April Rosemary, to realize that real love is implacably forgiving.”
She nodded.
“I better get back in there. They all want to see how I’ve changed.”
“Not at all, dear. A little older, a little more self-possessed.”
“And a lot less obnoxious, I hope.” She grinned, dumped her pile of plates in the sink, and rushed back to the party.
That night, after we said our prayers, as we cuddled in bed, both of us emotionally drained, Chuck whispered, “Well we won that one.”
“By a landslide.”
“How did we come to think it would end any differently?”
“Mostly my fears that I was a poor mother.”
“And now?”
“She’s damn lucky to have one like me.”
I’d save that line for Maggie Ward.
29
Not that night, but some night shortly thereafter, we conceived our sixth child.
“Unplanned pregnancy?” Peg asked
“Definitely planned … If my daughter-in-law is pregnant and my daughter will probably be soon, I might just as well be, right?”
“Chuck … ?”
“It takes two to plan. We both want another kid around the house.”
“You are the craziest of all the O’Malleys.” She embraced me. “And the best of the lot too.”
So in due course and with remarkably little fuss, there appeared in the world a certain Siobhan Marie O’Malley.
All that needs to be said about her can be summed up in the comments of her sibling, Moire Meg:
“Gosh, Rosie, she is like totally cool … Are we ready for a third redhead in the family?”
ALSO BY ANDREW M. GREELEY
from Tom Doherty Associates
All About Women
Angel Fire
Angel Light
The Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St. Germain
The Bishop and the Missing L Train
A Christmas Wedding
Contract with an Angel
Faithful Attraction
The Final Planet
Furthermore!: Memories of a Parish Priest
God Game
Irish Eyes
Irish Gold
Irish Lace
Irish Mist
Irish Stew*
Irish Whiskey
A Midwinter’s Tale
Star Bright!
Summer at the Lake
White Smoke
Younger than Springtime
Sacred Visions (editor with Michael Cassutt)
*forthcoming
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The O‘Malleys are a fictional family. This story is an exercise in historical fiction. Thus the conversations between the O’Malleys and people who exist in God’s world are fictional, as are incidents involving such people. Pat Moynihan’s comment about Henry Kissinger is in his A Dangerous Place. The rescue in the South China Sea is based on a true story. The Limits of Intervention by Townsend Hoopes tells the story of the decision by the Senior Advisers of the President to recommend the termination of the war in 1968.
What happened to all the young radicals of those years? Most of the young people of that era were not all that radical. They couldn’t sell out because they had never really bought in. For some of those who did buy in, sex, drugs, and rock and roll were the outer limits of their radicalism—combined with an occasional protest march. Most of them returned to the upper-middle-class fold from which they came. Some would say they “sold out” and permit themselves to feel fashionably guilty about that while they enjoy the good life with some superficial and self-indulgent modifications of life style (which David Brooks has described brilliantly in his book Bobos). Others repudiated their radical experimentation and became at least as conservative as their parents. Others abandoned more or less the trappings of radicalism but continued their intense political commitment, as my colleague Doug McAdams has argued.
April Rosemary’s return to her family is in many ways typical. Her radical roots were not all that deep. However, she gives a hint at the end of the story that she remains politically committed, perhaps in the style of her family’s pragmatic liberalism. What will happen to this young woman whose charisma her mother is only beginning to appreciate? Will she seek political office of some sort, following in the footsteps of her great-grandfather O’Malley, save at the opposite end of the political spectrum?
We’ll have to wait and see.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
SEPTEMBER SONG
Copyright © 2001 by Andrew M. Greeley
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eISBN 9781429912297
First eBook Edition : May 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greeley, Andrew M.
September Song / Andrew M. Greeley.—1st
ed. p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 0-312-87225-9 (acid-free paper)
1. O’Malley, Chucky (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Irish American families—Fiction. 3. Irish Americans-Fiction.
4. Ambassadors—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.R358 S47 2001
813’.54—dc21
2001033552
First Edition: September 2001
September Song Page 32
