Thy Brother's Wife

by Andrew M. Greeley

  * * *

  Paul paced nervously back and forth in his office in the Senate Office Building. Outside the window, the great dome of the Capitol stood as a reminder that this was the seat of what was surely the most powerful legislative body in the world.

  “Chris Waverly has had it in for me for years. Wanted to sleep with me a long time ago. I turned her down, of course, and she’s never forgiven me.”

  “She waved a diary at me, Paul. Said it was Maggie’s, and that it had the details of your love affair.”

  “Tom Shields wouldn’t give her a book like that, even if it were true and even if Maggie had kept such a record.”

  “She says that you were in bed with Nicole the night of the hotel fire.” There was steel in Sean’s voice.

  Paul dismissed the charge with a wave of his hand, but his eyes were dancing randomly, nervously.

  “She does know one true thing.” Sean pushed on relentlessly. “She knows that Tom gave me Maggie’s farewell letter to you and that I destroyed it.”

  “So much the worse for you, little brother.” Paul grinned crookedly. “Chris is a bitch. She might just do a story based on that one fact and hint about a lot of other things. It will stir up a little trouble for a day or two, and then it will be forgotten. Anyway, you keep saying you don’t want to be Archbishop of Chicago.”

  “Even if a quarter of what she says is true, you can imagine what it will do to Nora and the kids.”

  “Oh, the hell with Nora and the kids,” Paul said. “I don’t need this sort of thing just at the beginning of my career in the Senate. And I’m not going to have it. You can count on it, little brother. Not a word of this is ever going to appear in print.”

  “How are you going to stop it, Paul?”

  “Just don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of everything.”

  Sean saw his brother clearly for the first time. Every charge Chris had made against Paul was probably true. He stood up, wanting to escape from the office as quickly as he could. There was an evil in his brother that amazed and frightened him.

  * * *

  As soon as Sean left the office, Paul punched a number into the telephone. “Eric? I wonder if we could get together this afternoon. It’s similar to a matter we discussed last year.”

  “Of course, sir. We’re always happy to oblige.”

  * * *

  At National Airport, Sean stood staring at the bank of telephones, oblivious to the people streaming by him. Chris Waverly was a bitch. She had raked up a scandal that would destroy not only Paul but Nora and the children. Yet her charges were probably true. In any event.…

  He walked to the telephones, waited until one was vacant, went inside the booth, and closed the glass door.

  “Yes?” Chris Waverly said.

  “Bishop Cronin, Miss Waverly. I must apologize for not believing you the other day. I hope you won’t go ahead with the story. Too many innocent people are going to be hurt. I think I can promise you that Paul will step down after his first term in the Senate, and that he will never run for the presidency. Be that as it may, however, until you make a definite decision or until you’ve finished writing the story and have it in the hands of your editor, I suggest you disappear from sight and that you disappear with very effective security precautions.”

  “Is that a threat, Bishop?” Her voice was hostile.

  “No, Miss Waverly,” Sean said wearily. “It is not a threat. I don’t especially like you or what you’re doing, but I don’t want any accident you may suffer on my conscience.”

  “I see.” There was a pause on the other end of the conversation. “Very well, Bishop. I’ll take your advice. You are different from your brother.”

  Sean staggered away from the telephone booth like a man who had been on an all-night drunk.

  * * *

  Paul poured himself a second drink with an unsteady hand. He had come to Chicago the day before. He felt more secure here. Would the damn telephone never ring? There would be little peace or relaxation for him until he received a confirmatory phone call from Eric. He could not imagine the reason for the delay.

  Finally, the phone rang and Paul jumped at it.

  “This is Eric. I’m sorry to disturb you at home.”

  “Goddammit, man, it’s all right. What’s happening? Why the delay?”

  “We’re doing the best we can, sir,” Eric said. “We just have not been able to resolve the matter. Our team can’t find the person in question. We’ll continue to look, of course.”

  Paul felt his muscles and bones melt. It was over. The story would appear any day, and a quarter century of his efforts would have been wasted. “Keep on trying. It’s a matter of life and death,” he said.

  “Of course, sir. Of course we will. I’ll be back in touch with you, as soon as I have something to report.”

  Paul wished that the Chinese bayonet had really found his gut on the hillside by the Reservoir. Like a man in a dream, he walked out of the study and down the steps and away from the house.

  A rainstorm accompanied him from Chicago to Oakland Beach. He drove recklessly, ignoring the speed limit and the slippery road. What difference would a speeding ticket make now? He drove by the white gate at Oakland Beach and on to the New Albany Marina. He would take out the Mary Eileen and sail away from all his problems.

  The marina was deserted, only a few boats were in the water in early April. The Mary Eileen was rarely used before the kids arrived in June, but there were standing orders of twenty years’ duration that it was to go into the harbor on the first day of spring.

  He started the motor, backed out of the slip, and flipped on the weather radio. The prediction was for strong winds following the rainstorm.

  The lake was smooth and there was almost no wind when he cleared the harbor mouth. He unfurled the jib, ran up the mainsail, and turned off the motor. The wind would be from the northeast. Why not make a straight run for Chicago? It was a strong boat, actually the fourth to bear the name, twenty-eight feet of solid fiberglass and carefully constructed rigging and masts. Comfortable, too. It could sleep six, although as far as he knew no one had ever spent the night on it.

  He thought briefly of the nights he and Nora had spent together over the years. He was sorry he had not been kinder to Nora.

  Then he admitted to himself that he had driven up to the lake so recklessly because he wanted to die. But wasn’t that ridiculous? Why die when Eric could be calling that very minute to tell him of his success?

  He brought the boat around. The wind and waves were picking up. Now was the time to return to the harbor. He hesitated, thinking of what would lie ahead if Eric failed. Scandal, disgrace, humiliation … the press, for so long his ally, riding him into the ground.

  He headed back out into the lake, away from shore and into the storm.

  The sun dove rapidly for the horizon as the Mary Eileen speeded on. She skipped from wave to wave as if she were rushing to join it. The halyards strained and the rigging screamed. Paul Cronin stood exultantly at his tiller. This was the way to go out, the wind blasting at your face, hair streaming in the fading light, the cold lake water washing over the prow of the boat and down the gunwales to form puddles at your feet.

  The wind was soon more than twenty knots and the waves up to six feet. The Mary Eileen roared like a banshee as she rode up and down the waves. Paul screamed in harmony with her. The Reservoir, Heartbreak Ridge, Maggie, Nicole, Mickey—his life raced before him. All right, all right, I gave it a pretty good go. A few things went wrong, that’s all. Get out while I’m still ahead.

  One of the stays on the mast snapped. The mast tottered, swayed, and then crashed back toward the cockpit, barely missing Paul’s head and enveloping him in billowing nylon. He struggled free.

  Nora. Yes, Nora. He still wanted to live.

  He ducked into the cabin and grabbed for the microphone on his radio. “Mayday, Mayday,” he bellowed. “Mary Eileen in distress two miles off Michigan City. Mayday, Mayday.
This is Senator Cronin, I have lost my mast. Do you hear me? Michigan City Coast Guard, do you hear me?”

  He flipped the “Receive” button, expecting the reassuring response of the Coast Guard, located only a few miles away. There was no answer.

  “Mayday, Mayday,” he shouted again, this time close to panic. A terrible thought occurred to him. He switched on the cabin lights. Nothing. He flicked the switch again. No battery. Only enough to start the auxiliary motor and turn on the weather radio.

  “Mayday, Mayday,” he sobbed into the dead microphone.

  The Mary Eileen wallowed drunkenly in slashing waves. Paul pulled himself out of the cabin. Cut the mainsail free and use the jib as a sea anchor. He had seen it done once in a movie. The mainsail was dragging the boat broadside into the wind.

  He dodged under the fallen mast and struggled back into the cabin, a freezing wave slamming into his face. He had to get the sail cut quickly. The Mary Eileen was “capsize proof”—but that didn’t apply to storms like this when it was hull to the wind. He slammed doors open and shut in the cabinets until he came upon a knife. Not much of a knife but it would have to do.

  He pushed upward against the cockpit door to get out of the cabin. It was wedged tight by the weight of the fallen mast and would not budge. The boat had imprisoned him. It would roll over and the water would sweep in in an overwhelming tide. He pounded against the door until his fists were bleeding. Then the boat spun around under the force of another huge wave that dumped water into the cockpit and through the ventilator in the cabin door. God, the water was cold.

  But the door swung open. Paul heaved himself back into the slippery cockpit.

  The sun was setting now, turning the throbbing waters of the lake red and purple. Paul slashed away at the sail, ripping it frantically and trying to remember how you rigged a sea anchor with a jib.

  There was one last piece of sail at the top cleat of the mast. He climbed up on the cockpit seat and leaned over the stern to slash it free.

  He saw the wave coming, not much larger than the others, but at a different angle. It slammed into the stern, knocking Paul from the seat and smashing him against the mast. For a moment he seemed to hang free in the air; then his fingers clutched at the mast.

  It was too slippery to hold. The boat spun again and Paul Cronin plunged into Lake Michigan. He was not wearing a life jacket.

  A life preserver would not help, he told himself, as he hit the lake. He would not survive more than half an hour in water that cold.

  The pain in his body from the icy purple waters was like fire. He remembered the stories about Irish fishermen who refused to learn to swim lest they prolong their death agonies.

  He wished he had never learned to swim.

  He thought back to the time so many years before when Sean had rescued him from the lake. What had happened to him since then? Why had everything gone so wrong?

  Then the parade of faces again: the old man, Maggie, Chris, Richard Daley, his girls, Nora, and then, finally, his brother.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  1977

  Nora and Sean stood side by side over the closed casket in the moments before six United States Senators came to carry the sealed casket of the late Junior Senator from Illinois to the hearse in which he would make his last ride down Glenwood Drive for his final Mass at St. Titus Church.

  Nora was weeping, as she had so often wept during the wake and the funeral.

  “Suicide or accident, Sean?” She asked the question that they both had been afraid to ask.

  “God loves us all, Nora, no matter what.” He gave the only answer he could.

  After the body of Senator Paul Martin Cronin had been laid to rest in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery and the mourners had eaten the traditional meal at the Rosewood Inn, Sean and Nora drove Michael Cronin back to his apartment at the Hancock Tower. It was a flawless April afternoon, a false hint of spring hovering over the city.

  The girls had held up well. Mary and Eileen were dry-eyed, although their faces were pinched with pain. Noreen wept, but softly and quietly. She had appointed herself custodian of “Gramps,” doggedly pushing his wheelchair down the aisle of the church.

  As she grew older, Noreen seemed more like her grandmother. No wonder Uncle Mike saved his rare smiles for her. Poor Mike, the wake and funeral had been harder on him than on anyone else. He had cried through the Mass and then again at the burial ceremony. He was slipping rapidly.

  “I’ll hold the door, Noreen,” Sean said softly as the elevator on the forty-fourth floor of the Hancock Tower opened.

  “Gramps never had such a quick nurse,” crowed Noreen, deftly steering through the door.

  Youth bounded back so quickly. Nora would spend a long time trying to understand her own grief. She had loved Paul. A strange love, perhaps, but still a true love in its way.

  The three of them stood awkwardly in the parlor of Uncle Mike’s apartment, handing him over to the care of his nurse and yet not knowing how to leave.

  Mike Cronin’s hand scrawled an illegible word on the note pad attached to his chair. Sean bent over the pad, gently moving the twisted fingers away from the word. “Glendore,” he said, puzzled.

  “He wants us to take him up there,” said Noreen. “Don’t you, Gramps?”

  Mike nodded his head.

  “Tomorrow all right?” asked Nora. A trip to Oakland Beach would mean all that less time to think.

  Again he nodded.

  As they rode down in the elevator, Noreen broke the silence. “He wants to die up there,” she said firmly.

  * * *

  That night Sean went to the cathedral rectory. Wabash Avenue was deserted, cold, unfriendly. In either direction, there were only the buildings and the streetlights. He hurried through the door of the white stone building, itself cold and unfriendly.

  In his room he poured himself one of his rare nightcaps, swallowed it quickly, and poured another. He strove to feel grief. In a way he was responsible. If he had not warned Chris Waverly …

  Who was Paul Cronin? Who was this brother about whose death he could feel numbness but no pain? Had there ever been a real Paul Cronin? Had pressure from their father cut the core out of his brother’s personality?

  Sorrow would come eventually; it was still too soon. The important thing was that the sign was as clear as it could be: Paul was dead; Nora was free to marry. The mistakes he and Nora had made a quarter of a century ago could now be canceled out. They would wait a discreet amount of time and then quietly be married. There was no point in his applying for a dispensation, because Rome did not dispense bishops. About that he couldn’t care less.

  His phone rang.

  “Cronin,” he said.

  “Chris Waverly, Bishop. I’m sorry about your brother’s death.”

  Her voice was gentle.

  “Thank you, Miss Waverly. I appreciate your sympathy.”

  “I had been sitting up here for days trying to make up my mind whether to use the story. I finally decided not to, on the condition that Paul agree to never run for the presidency. I didn’t want to hurt you … or his family. Then I heard.”

  “I appreciate that decision.” Sean tried to keep his voice neutral.

  “Was it suicide, Bishop?”

  “We’ll never know, Miss Waverly. We’ll never know how much moral responsibility was involved. I suspect with Paul that there never was much of that.”

  “I’ve destroyed all the documents.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “You are very different from your brother, Bishop Cronin. I don’t believe in much myself, but I do hope you’re the next Archbishop of Chicago.”

  “I’m not going to be the next Archbishop of Chicago, but it’s nice of you to say it just the same.”

  “I’m sure you will be,” said Chris Waverly. “Good luck.”

  * * *

  On Palm Sunday, Noreen, Sean, and Nora rode to Oakland Beach to visit Mike. The two adults were moody and preoccupied, pa
ying little attention to the wonderful spring day. Noreen considered talking about Easter and resurrection and decided against it. She knew that teenagers didn’t preach sermons to bishops.

  “You haven’t heard from the Delegate yet?” Nora broke the silence.

  “Not since the funeral,” Sean said. “Why?”

  “Jimmy told me that everyone in Rome is saying that they’re going to offer you Chicago. You are going to take it, aren’t you?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You will,” Nora said.

  “I won’t,” he responded stubbornly.

  “I don’t want an argument on such a nice day,” Noreen intervened. Poor grown-ups, she thought, all their heavy decisions made them forget what life was supposed to be about.

  When they arrived at Glendore, Mathilda directed them to the study. Noreen had been told by her mother that her grandfather had built Glendore when he and her grandmother were just married. It was hard to think of him as a young man with a bride.

  “Hi, Uncle Mike,” Nora said in a cheery voice. Then she saw that Mike was sitting in his chair, hunched over, crying.

  Outside, the waters of the lake were as smooth as a sheet of thin blue ice. Noreen wondered if Gramps was angry at the lake for taking her father.

  “What is it, Dad?” Sean’s voice was gentle.

  “He’s holding something in his hand,” Nora said. “It looks like a picture.”

  Noreen took the picture out of his hand. “It’s a picture of Daddy and Uncle Sean with Gramps and Grandma when they were little boys.”

  Then, not quite knowing why, Noreen threw her arms around her grandfather and wept with him.

  * * *

  Sean glanced at his watch. Another hour before the Holy Thursday services would begin. He was physically and emotionally drained.

  On Wednesday he had received a call from the Delegate.

  “I must begin, Archbishop Cronin, by telling you how very, very sorry I am for the tragedy in your family.”

  “I appreciate that, Archbishop.” Sean repeated his now familiar response to sympathy. “My sister and her children and I also appreciate your very kind telegram and the Holy Father’s cablegram.”