Younger Than Springtime
Page 42
Except the first grandchild, who I suspected would always be considered inferior because he had O’Malley genes in him. Or her.
Peg had not heard from Vince, the stupid son of a bitch, for two weeks and resolutely refused to discuss the matter with anyone, especially me.
Rosemarie was at mass with her father and his aged housekeeper, looking terribly unhappy.
Christmas in Bamberg had been better.
And I wondered about Trudi and worried about her and Magda and Erika.
It was not my fault she had disappeared. I had tried my best to find her.
But maybe I had been as dumb with her as Christopher said I had been with Rosemarie after the fight at Jimmy’s.
We sang the carols in the music room after mass with less than our usual vigor and then gratefully escaped to our beds. I was sure that Peg’s pillow would be wet with tears.
The stupid Neapolitan son of a bitch. I ought to teach him a thing or two. Trifle with my sister’s affections, will he?
First, however, I would seek lessons from the revered master.
That was my pious Christmas thought as I fell asleep.
No, I think there was one other: that was the prudent caution that even with the help of the revered master I would be no match for Vince.
When I woke up in mid-morning the family was still listless and frustrated. Snow glittered on the lawn. The Christmas tree in the parlor glowed cheerfully. The candle in the window—an old Irish custom, Mom had insisted—welcomed the lonely traveler. Presents were heaped in front of the “second” tree (the one that really counted) in the music room. But our hearts were heavy.
Not so heavy that I didn’t eat a breakfast fit for two people and down a quart of eggnog—unfortified by rum, I hasten to add.
“Sometimes I think the Christmases were better in the old apartment on Menard Avenue.” Mom permitted herself a rare display of gloom.
“Maybe you’re right,” Dad agreed.
“Kids grow up,” I philosophized between gulps of eggnog, “they have problems.”
“Well, at least you don’t, Chucky dear.” Mom hugged me. “You’re as steady as Gibraltar.”
“He eats more,” Dad laughed.
Good old steady Chucky Ducky.
“I thought Jim Clancy looked terrible at mass last night,” Mom continued. “I don’t see how he stands to live the way he does.”
“Rosemarie looked a bit tired too,” Dad agreed. “But even tired she’s still gorgeous, isn’t she, Chuck?”
“I didn’t notice,” I lied.
“Poor dear child.” Mom shook her head pensively. “She’s so loyal to the poor man.”
Rosemarie was definitely the favorite child.
In early afternoon we adjourned to the music room for our annual festival of carols—at least Mom and Dad and I did. Michael had gone for a walk and Peg “wasn’t feeling well, poor dear.”
The Neapolitan sickness.
We tried “O Holy Night” and “Le Cantique du Noël” the results were not impressive.
“It’s hard to have a festival”—Mom caressed the strings of her harp—“with only three people.”
Then the ghost of Christmas present arrived in the person of Rosemarie Helen Clancy, bearing a huge collection of carefully wrapped presents and enough Christmas cheer for the whole of Oak Park. Her face was flushed from the cold, her eyes sparkled with winter diamonds, her green knit dress with red trim would have made a corpse smile, her vibrant energy brought craziness back to the O’Malley clan.
Not a moment too soon.
“Stay away from the mistletoe, Chucky! I really have the Christmas spirit today!”
“I accept the warning.”
I wasn’t very worried. Rosemarie would kiss me only when I started the process; and that I had no intention of doing.
I would, however, as a compromise join my whiskey tenor (as I called it) with her soprano in the carol festival.
We shook the rafters. Peg recovered from her headache and joined us as the alto. Michael came in from his walk, paused at the door of the music room, saw Rosemarie’s signal to come in, and added his bass to Dad’s.
The crazy O’Malleys were operational again.
Then the miracles started to happen.
Ted and Jane appeared, stars in both their eyes.
“Put two extra plates on the table, April.” He embraced Mom. “We’re both hungry.”
“We have lots, dear; and you two are eating for three.”
“You sound wonderful,” Jane enthused. “We could hear you on the street.”
Game and set to the O’Malleys. Love-one against Doctor.
Vince was the next to join with a big present and a passionately tender kiss for Peg.
A kiss in which there was so much pain and so much sorrow and so much love that it could break your heart.
Even my fairly hardened heart.
Rosemarie started us on “Vincent the red-faced reindeer,” a spontaneous parody of “Rudolph,” who made his appearance that year.
“Well,” said Vince, delighted as he always was when we poked mild fun at him, “he was a reindeer you could count on at the last minute.”
Peg was radiantly lovely again. And my heart ached for the two of them and for love.
At supper Mom announced that “Rosemarie has found us the cutest little young man from IIT who’s going to come work with us after the first of the year. And a very lovely secretary too.”
Rosemarie, huh?
“He went to Leo High School,” Dad chuckled. “Grew up in St. Sabina’s. The South Side triumphs again.”
“Naturally, dear,” Mom agreed, as though doubt on that proposition was unthinkable.
At the exchange of presents after dinner, Rosemarie handed me a package that contained no surprises—elegant tennis whites and twelve rolls of Kodachrome 64.
“And I won’t ever be seen again on the tennis courts with you unless you’re properly dressed.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief.
“What if he puts on weight?” Peg teased me.
“Chucky doesn’t put on weight.” Jane hugged me—for the fifth time since she and Ted had appeared.
“If he eats that second fruitcake, he might start.”
“Could I get someone else”—I struggled out of my chair—“some eggnog? You can’t attack a second fruitcake without eggnog.”
She’s behind the whole thing, I decided. She found the two kids for the office. Mom and Dad couldn’t resist them. She encouraged Ted to resist Doctor. She chewed hell out of poor Vince. Matriarch-in-the-making, all right, and she’s only eighteen.
And she does it so gently that only a cynic like me knows what’s going on.
When all the visible presents had been distributed, there was a moment of relative peace while everyone in the music room basked in the joy of Christmas recaptured.
“I think there’s something missing.” I left the room. “Don’t go away, anyone.”
“I wonder what it is?” Jane said.
“A surprise!” Peg looked baffled. “What’s happening to Chucky? He’s becoming a romantic.”
“Fat chance.” Michael had actually opened his mouth.
I returned with a box.
“Wrapped as a present!” Jane crowed. “He really has changed!”
All my other presents had been wrapped too. I suspect that the women in my family had guessed whom this was for.
“Marshall Field’s wraps presents,” I grumbled. “Uh, Rosemarie, Spirit of Christmas present, I don’t expect you to wear this tomorrow, but next summer it should stop traffic at Grand Beach and Skelton Park.”
“For me!” She was astonished. “Oh, Chucky, how wonderful!”
She almost kissed me. She would have if I hadn’t ducked back. She clawed at the wrappings and the box.
“Oh!” all the women in the room exclaimed in unison. “Isn’t it cute!”
“That’s one word for it!” Dad chortled appreciatively.
It was the sexiest tennis frock available in 1949—white with maroon trim (of course), low back, plunging neckline, the shortest of sleeves, and a skirt that foreshadowed the mini.
Beyond all right reason there was an instant demand that she put it on, a demand to which she succumbed. She bounded out of the room like a charging rhino. I quickly loaded the Kodak she had given me before I had left for Germany. She bounded back in—barefoot and devastating in my present.
I will admit I gulped. I fired away with the camera. She gave me a thumbs-up signal.
Everyone else applauded.
Rosemarie glanced around at the crazy O’Malleys and then, unaccountably, began to cry.
I found myself holding her in my arms on the love seat in the corner of music room. The rest of the family struck up “Adeste Fidelis,” not necessarily appropriate for the moment. Through her tears, Rosemarie joined us.
She saves Christmas for the rest of us and then breaks down over what was after all a very minor present.
She is unbearably beautiful in it, isn’t she?
And she feels like she belongs in my arms, doesn’t she?
I would have to maneuver her in the direction of the mistletoe when she dried her tears.
Maybe Christopher and Father Raven and God were right. Maybe I ought not to let her get away. Maybe somehow I could beat the drinking bouts. Maybe she was the closest thing to God I’d meet in all my life.
“Rosemarie,” I whispered as she clung to me, “I have responses to your four points from earlier in the week.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow.
“They are yes, yes, yes, and no.”
Note
Some will think my description of the University of Notre Dame during the postwar world is excessively harsh. However, I have vetted it with contemporaries who attended the Golden Dome during those years. Although they have fond memories for the school, they acknowledge that my description is essentially accurate. Obviously the university has undergone several transformations in the last half-century.
The English Jesuit is based on Father Martin D’Arcy, the author of a Catholic classic in that era, The Mind and Heart of Love, which he summarizes at the dinner with Chuck and Cordelia.
By Andrew M. Greeley
from Tom Doherty Associates
All About Women
Angel Fire
Angel Light
The Bishop and the Missing L Train
Contract with an Angel
Faithful Attraction
The Final Planet
Furthermore!: Memories of a Parish Priest
God Game
Irish Gold
Irish Lace
Irish Mist
Irish Whiskey
Irish Eyes
A Midwinter’s Tale
Star Bright!
Summer at the Lake
White Smoke
Younger Than Springtime
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
YOUNGER THAN SPRINGTIME
Copyright © 1999 by Andrew M. Greeley Enterprises, Ltd.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
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Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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ISBN: 978-1-4299-1221-1
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-22198