by John Ayang
“We do derive the same nutritious value,” Stacy contested as she got a pan of roasted beef from their cousin to put on the table while the latter went back to bring other food items from the kitchen to the dining area. “So, why waste time on needless protocols? What’s the difference?”
“It’s that between a lawyer and a real estate agent slash interior decorating expert,” Mrs. Donovan said, facetiously. “The one doesn’t care about taste, the other does. Sit beside Father, dear.” She pointed to the seat on the right of Fr. McCarthy and Stacy moved over dutifully. Mrs. Donovan proceeded to assign seats to her son and their cousin, a pretty young lady, probably not older than fifteen or sixteen. The young man appeared to be in his mid-twenties, with a quiet, almost lugubrious, demeanor. They nodded acceptance of their positions and went back to bring more food items to the table. It was obvious from the inception that Mrs. Donovan enjoyed her role as the matriarch of the small Donovan clan.
“I thought lawyers were supposed to be a class with a taste for protocol,” Fr. Polanski said, picking up the conversation. “I mean, I have always admired court decorum and procedures which probably beat the Catholic Mass, stratifying the room into bar and bench, addressing the presiding judge, ‘Your Honor,’…”
“’Your Worship,’ in parts of Europe…” Fr. McCarthy interjected.
“Yes, of course,” Fr. Polanski said, welcoming the addition. “And referring to a lengthy appeal to judge or jury as ‘praying the court,’ and admission of guilt as ‘confession.’”
“Whoa! Father,” Stacy said, pleasantly surprised. “You know quite a lot about court intricacies and decorum.”
“Brilliant, Father!” Mrs. Donovan approved, excitedly. “Positively brilliant!” It soon became clear that every statement with which she agreed was brilliant. And she herself exuded brilliance, too, as Fr. McCarthy came to conclude. A middle-aged woman on the high side of fifty, she looked younger than her years. Except for a few lines on the outward sides of her eyes and two faintly visible lines crossing her neck, she could pass for forty. Like Stacy, she was a paragon of beauty, Unlike Stacy, she carried herself stately about in an air of superiority that seemed second nature to her, but devoid of arrogance, and Fr. McCarthy couldn’t help but notice the uncanny resemblance in bodily features, even if mother and daughter were given to indulgent sparring, each trying to promote hers as the better profession. In fact, their personalities were somewhat different. Fr. McCarthy thought mother and daughter were highly learned and intelligent as he recalled his conversations with Stacy in previous days. Listening to her mother was a delight. Though she was chatty, she was not unbearably so. And she made a lot of sense when she spoke.
“You see, Fathers. That’s where the difference between lawyers and the rest of us lies. They use art in their profession, but to make money. We appreciate art for the beauty of it,” Mrs. Donovan said, teasing her daughter.
“Oh, C’mon, Mom. Are you kidding me?” Stacy sparred with mock vexation. “Since when did real estate agents prospect for land, built or refurbished houses, and give them away for charity? And since when did you finish decorating a house without sending a bill?”
“The money is secondary for us,” Mrs. Donovan replied cleverly. “We’re like the priests…”
“In what way?” Stacy challenged.
“Priests don’t charge money for their services. They get stipends. Isn’t that so, Father?” Mrs. Donovan asked, not really waiting for an answer. “We interior decorators don’t charge our clients. There is no adequate payment for beauty. We get honoraria.”
“Okay, Mom. That’s where we’re even,” Stacy said. “We’re like priests, too. We don’t charge money. We receive compensations. Shall we pray and eat before the food gets cold?”
“Actually, both of you are right,” Fr. McCarthy said, adding ruefully, “We don’t charge parishioners for our services. We only take up collections.” His remark cracked everybody up in raucous guffaw. Mrs. Donovan paid her usual compliments of ‘brilliant’ in between heaves of laughter. When she could hold it, she invited Fr. McCarthy to pray the grace before the meal. He did. Mrs. Donovan insisted on serving the priests, an idiosyncrasy which, according to her, she contracted from her mother who believed guests should always be served the first round of the meal, after which, they can serve themselves seconds and thirds. Everyone enjoyed the meal and conversation. Fr. McCarthy and Fr. Polanski took turns spinning yarns about their seminary days, while the Donovans listened with rapt attention, fascinated to learn that life inside the seminary was, in many ways, markedly different from life in secular universities, but also, in some ways, similar. Their stories were so entertaining that even the young Donovan, Stacy’s brother, lost his lugubrious demeanor and chuckled at intervals. Their cousin kept smiling coyly, and Mrs. Donovan and Stacy forgot, for a moment, to fight over whose profession was the better one. Mrs. Donovan didn’t permit herself to be outdone, as she regaled them with stories of her college sorority exploits with Stacy playing the part of the critic, always ready to point out where her mom had embellished the facts. Eventually, she steered the conversation to Fr. McCarthy, broaching the subject of his pending lawsuit.
“I hear that one of your parishioners is suing you for discrimination. Is that true?” she asked, addressing Fr. McCarthy.
“Yes, Mrs. Donovan,” Fr. McCarthy replied with a tinge of embarrassment. “The suing couple did something they shouldn’t have done as Catholics. When they were sanctioned, they took offense and decided to sue me, alleging discrimination.”
“But, why discrimination?” Mrs. Donovan asked, genuinely confused. “Where’s the discrimination in being sanctioned for what you have done wrong?”
“Mom, it’s a complex issue,” Stacy interjected. She was afraid Fr. McCarthy would bring in the race factor and complicate the conversation, seeing as her family was of mixed blood. “They are alleging that Fr. McCarthy has not sanctioned other offenders in the same situation, that he singled them out,” she added, attempting to steer the conversation away from a discussion about race.
“But is that true? What was the actual offense?” Mrs. Donovan asked, still genuinely puzzled.
“Mom, you don’t need to know that,” Stacy said, beginning to feel cagy. “We are taking care of the issue at the Chancery legal office.”
“That’s okay, Stacy,” Fr. McCarthy said, raising his hand slightly to calm her. “She needs to know because it is a common issue concerning Church teaching. This couple used the new reproductive technology of pre-implantation genetic screening and in vitro fertilization to conceive a child.”
“But isn’t that against Church teaching? I have read the document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that came out on that issue, and I think Pope Benedict says the Church does not endorse IVF for Catholic couples,” Mrs. Donovan said.
“That’s precisely the point, Mrs. Donovan,” Fr. McCarthy replied, glad for an ally in her.
“I think the couple is probably angry about other things, too,” Fr. Polanski interjected. “Maybe they feel the Church is too restrictive or too absolutist in its moral dictates. We encounter a lot of people, especially in the liberal camp, who tend to think that way.”
“This couple sounds, to me, like they are from that camp,” Mrs. Donovan surmised. “Are they Caucasian or Hispanic?
“Mom!” Stacy was getting alarmed. “That is irrelevant…”
“They are Africans,” Fr. McCarthy interjected. “From Nigeria, and highly educated. The husband is an obstetrician/gynecologist and the wife is a pediatrician. So, it’s a kind of academic arrogance, too.”
“Fr. McCarthy, you don’t need to field Mother’s every question,” Stacy said with a tinge of authority, perhaps to remind Fr. McCarthy that she was the one to call the shots as his attorney.
“But, dear, it’s not like this is classified information,” Mrs. Donovan protested feebly. “It’s a law
suit, and you can bet that since it involves the Catholic Church, it will be all over the papers and the television.”
“Like I don’t know that,” Stacy parried. “Again, we’re handling that at the Chancery office, Mom. And I’m on top of it. So, if you don’t mind, can we please change the subject?” With that, Stacy got up while asking, “Anybody for dessert, coffee, or something?”
Her brother and their cousin, sensing an opening, grabbed the cue and quickly got up to start clearing the table for dessert. They were glad to leave the table, as the conversation was getting intense. Fr. Polanski, too, was relieved that Stacy requested a change in subject. He was all the time trying to catch Fr. McCarthy’s attention to give him a signal to change the subject, but it seemed the latter was ready to indulge Mrs. Donovan further, perhaps to feed the need to prove his righteous innocence.
“Coffee for me,” he called out.
“Fr. McCarthy?” Stacy inquired.
“A sliver of dessert, no coffee,” Fr. McCarthy responded curtly, feeling slightly, but indirectly, rebuked by Stacy’s reaction to her mom. He accepted in his mind that he was beginning to go too far. And Stacy was right. He needed to be guarded in talking about the lawsuit, even with well-meaning people such as his lawyer’s mother. He made a mental note to defer everything to Stacy in the future. After all, she was his attorney.
Mrs. Donovan herself did not seem ruffled at all by her daughter’s souring humor. As Stacy moved to the kitchen to prepare desserts and coffee, she leaned forward and said in hushed tones for Fr. McCarthy’s and Fr. Polanski’s benefit, “I have never seen a young lady so fiendishly protective of her profession and her clients.”
“I heard that,” Stacy called from the kitchen and Mrs. Donovan grimaced funnily, barely stifling a smile while drawing her finger across her closed mouth, from left to right, indicating that her mouth was zipped. She got up to join the rest of the kitchen crew in preparing and getting the desserts and coffee to the table. Fr. Polanski spotted a football jersey in a glass case, hanging at the far end of the room, close to the corridor. He decided to use that to begin a new line of conversation for dessert time.
“Who plays football?” he inquired loudly, directing the question to Mrs. Donovan in the kitchen. “Your husband or your son?”
“Geoffrey,” Mrs. Donovan began.
“Junior,” her son interjected before she could add another word.
“Junior, of course. How forgetful of me,” Mrs. Donovan pretended to correct herself. “Geoffrey, Jr. is the football player, not Geoffrey, Sr. Thank you, Son, for not letting your demented mom mix things up.” She came back to the dining table with cups of coffee and small spoons on saucers. “He always thinks I’m so old that I would have a senior moment forgetting to add the suffix when I’m referring to him.”
“I’m not saying you’re old, Mom,” Geoffrey, Jr. protested. “I was just trying to say that I’m the one who plays football, not my dad.”
“What school do you play for?” Fr. McCarthy asked, more by way of trying to diffuse the tension between mom and son before it escalated into an all-out argument.
“Strake,” Geoffrey, Jr, replied. “I used to play for Strake Preparatory.”
“Geoffrey is in transition now,” Stacy chipped in, arriving at the table with a tray of assorted sweets, her cousin hot in tow with a pot of freshly brewed coffee, which she set on a pad on the table. “Geoffrey, Jr., I mean to say.” She quickly corrected herself while their mother rolled her eyes and stifled a chuckle as Stacy kicked her gently under the table. “He is going to college next fall. Aren’t you, Junior?”
“Yeah,” he replied, looking at his sister warily, and, having determined that she wasn’t making fun of him, he continued, “I’m going to the University of St. Thomas in the fall to study Business Administration.”
“That’s a good Catholic college,” Fr. Polanski said, supportively. “It’s well run, too.”
“I’m excited for him,” Mrs. Donovan said. “Though I had thought he would want to attend the seminary.”
“Mom, don’t put him on the spot,” Stacy chided gently, again kicking her mother under the table.
“I’m not putting him on the spot. I’m just saying what I thought he would like,” Mrs. Donovan countered. “But he decided otherwise, so there is no putting him on the spot.” Stacy placed a saucer with a generous slice of pecan pie in front of Fr. McCarthy and was about to do the same for Fr. Polanski, but the latter declined and asked for only coffee instead. Fr. McCarthy half-heartedly protested the huge size of his pie then went ahead and ate all of it, anyway. He declined to drink coffee because, as he put it, he didn’t want to keep vigil while the rest of the world slept. Fr. Polanski gulped down his coffee and praised it as the best brew he had ever tasted. Stacy thanked him for the compliment and looked pleased because he liked her coffee. She asked her mom whether she wanted a cup of her exquisite brew. The latter declined and announced a different type of dessert altogether.
“I’ll have a glass of wine, instead,” Mrs. Donovan announced and started to get up.
“I’ll bring it, Mom,” Geoffrey, Jr. offered, and rushed from the table in the direction of the cellar. “What should I bring, Mom?”
“Ooo! Here comes the wine party,” Stacy said, teasing. “He loves wine. That’s why he’s quick in offering to fetch it.”
“Bring Che Gaucho,” Mrs. Donovan called after her son. “Malbec Merlot,” she added, to specify. Fr. Polanski glanced furtively at Fr. McCarthy and the latter recalled his friend’s remark about ladies who drank wine by their brand names. Fr. Polanski’s psychology was that such women were wont to exude power, and they ran the house while their husbands were the laid-back type, happily available for just honey-dos. Fr. McCarthy concluded in his mind that his friend was probably right after all. Though Mr. Donovan was not home that evening so he could observe him, he concluded that Mrs. Donovan pretty much ran things in their miniature palace. She was the undisputed queen and matriarch of the Donovan clan, though it seemed that Stacy would not always grant her that 100% sway. She wasn’t draconian or unbearable, but she exhibited the character of a woman who loved order and some measure of control. Stacy had earlier informed him that she suspected that her mother’s constant harassment of her to get married and settle down was not so much because of her concern for Stacy’s future as for the need to get rid of a challenging voice in the family. But having watched Mrs. Donovan that evening, Fr. McCarthy mentally disagreed with Stacy. His opinion of Mrs. Donovan was that of a woman, a pleasant lady, who loved things to go orderly and well. He particularly loved her support of Church teaching. If he could describe her, ideologically, he would call her a moderate conservative. And that was the group that Fr. McCarthy felt comfortable with.
After their dessert, the dinner group unconsciously divided itself into pairs. Geoffrey, Jr. and his cousin cleared the table and went to put the kitchen in order before retiring to their rooms to play video games. Mrs. Donovan and Fr. Polanski reclined where they were and continued small talk about this, that, and those; nothing particularly important. And Stacy invited her client, Fr. McCarthy, to the pool room for a game of billiards. Fr. McCarthy was not a billiards player, but he was an admirer of the game. So, he gladly welcomed the opportunity to learn to play. Stacy was not a bad teacher, as it soon became apparent that something else was beginning to brew between him and his attorney. He was conscious of the fact that he was tipsy because of the wine he drank, but he wasn’t so sure whether Stacy herself was not more than tipsy. She was a bit too chatty, and brushed against him several times. Once, in pretense of trying to teach him how to hold the billiard stick perfectly, so he could get a perfect knock of the ball into the hole, she stood behind him and literally pressed her soft, ample bosom against his back. And this added, in no small measure, to the warm, fuzzy effect that he was already having from being tipsy. Although he was a bit leery at the begi
nning, after a few brushes, he decided to relax and enjoy the teasing, if that was what it was. That turned out to be a bad idea. He suffered a stiff erection for his errant judgment. By the time he came out of his lesson knocking balls into holes in a table, he had to learn to manage the bulge in his crotch so it wouldn’t show. He walked slightly stooped and with legs slightly apart, making it appear as though he had had too much to eat. He was thankful to see that Fr. Polanski was already outside by the pool. Mrs. Donovan, still pinching the stem of her wine glass, was gesturing to emphasize what she was expounding upon.
“There you are,” Fr. Polanski said, looking relieved to see Fr. McCarthy. “Mrs. Donovan, I must say it was a wonderful evening. I wish we could stay longer, but I have an early appointment tomorrow.”
“Yes, Mrs. Donovan, it was a very pleasant evening and I enjoyed myself immensely,” Fr. McCarthy concurred. “I’m afraid we must run now. I have an early schedule, also. Thank you for the wonderful dinner. It was the best I have had in years.”
“Don’t blame us if we brag about it. It was delicious,” Fr. Polanski added to the compliments.
“Oh, don’t make a fuss about it. I’m sure it wasn’t anything near what your moms cook for you, or your housekeepers in the rectory,” Mrs. Donovan demurred. “Thanks for the compliments, though.”
Mrs. Donovan then gathered Fr. Polanski with one hand into a tight hug, still deftly pinching her wine glass, now almost empty, between her thumb and two forefingers, her third and fourth pinkies sticking out as ladies of class are wont to hold their wine glass or cigarette pipe. She gave Fr. McCarthy a hug, too. Stacy came out on cue, gave Fr. Polanski a brief hug, then Fr. McCarthy, holding on to him a little bit tightly and longer. Then she released him and, looking straight into his eyes, said, “Don’t worry. Everything will be alright.” Then she pecked him on the cheek and moved briskly away into the house, turning at the door to call out, “Good night, Fathers.”
“Good night, Stacy,” they chorused. “Good night, Mrs. Donovan.”
