Woman of God Read online

  James snapped, “There’s no truth to it at all.”

  “Any idea why Mr. Brent would make up such a story?”

  James said, “No idea at all. I’ve never had a personal relationship with Wally Brent, as God is my witness.”

  Richardson nodded and said, “Now, we all know you can’t address Mr. Brent directly, but if you could, what would you say to him?”

  Terry Marshall was on her feet in a flash, shouting, “Objection, Your Honor!”

  “Speak only to your attorney,” the judge said to James. “I’m allowing it for now, Ms. Marshall.”

  James leaned forward, directing himself to Kyle Richardson, who stood at an angle between himself and Wally Brent.

  James said, “The first thing I would say is, ‘Wally, to say that I’ve been alone with you outside the classroom, that we had any kind of personal relationship, is totally untrue, and you know that.

  “‘I cared about you, Wally, of course I did. You were a likable kid, and you were frustrated at Mount St. Joseph. I wanted to help you succeed. I did the best I could.’

  “I would tell Wally that I am shocked and very angry that he would make up this vicious story that discredits everything I have done in my life and everything I might do in the future. And I would say, ‘You can’t do this, Wally. I don’t deserve it. Take it back.’”

  Before the last word had left James’s mouth, a woman in a blue checked dress sitting at the rail right behind the plaintiff’s table jumped to her feet and screamed, “God knows what you have done to my son, James, you snake! You LIAR! You—”

  The bailiff reached the woman at the same time Wallace Brent turned in his chair and shouted, “Mom, noooo!”

  The courtroom went crazy.

  Brent’s mother shouted “You corrupted my boy!” as the bailiffs forcibly moved her out through the doors. The judge hammered his gavel, and the volume got even louder.

  Brent’s anguished features as his mother was ejected from the courtroom kind of worked for him. It was as if James’s speech and his mother’s reaction to it had brought back all the suffering he had described to the jury.

  I felt heartsick for James, but I also had a moment’s doubt. That was how convincingly Wally’s reaction gripped me. He had all my attention when he pressed his palms to the table and got heavily to his feet.

  “Wait a minute, Terry,” he said to his attorney.

  “Mr. Brent,” said the judge. “Sit down. You may not speak unless you are on the stand.”

  “Terry,” Brent said. “I’ve got something to say.”

  Chapter 78

  EVERY EYE in the courtroom was focused on Wallace Brent.

  His posture was awkward, his face was red, and his breathing was labored. I thought maybe he was about to go into cardiac arrest.

  He looked across the well toward the witness box and called out, “Father Aubrey, I have something to say.”

  Say what? Was he going to hurl more disgusting accusations at James?

  Judge Fiore said to Ms. Marshall, “Counselor, control your client, or I will have him removed.”

  Ms. Marshall snapped, “Wally. Sit.”

  And, like the big dog he was, he did it—reluctantly.

  Fiore asked Richardson if he had anything else for the witness, and Richardson said that he did not. Fiore told James to stand down and Wally Brent to retake the stand.

  Judge Fiore said, “You are still under oath, Mr. Brent. Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  Marshall approached her client with a little less pep in her step.

  She said, “Mr. Brent, what is it that you want to say?”

  Brent wiped his boyish face with his jacket sleeve and then looked across the well to James.

  “Father Aubrey,” Brent said, “I’m the liar. When you flunked me, I held that against you. I didn’t get into college, and it was easy to blame you for that, too. I make crap for money now, and I read that settlements in these kinds of cases can be over-the-top, and I thought, ‘Yeah. Aubrey owes me.’

  “But you don’t. If I go to hell for doing this, that’s not your fault, either. You never touched me. I’m sorry I made all this trouble for you. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but for what it’s worth, I am truly, truly sorry. I mean…”

  Brent sagged forward and, raising his hands to his face, broke into sobs so heavy, they echoed like an oncoming train.

  The judge slammed the gavel, shouting, “Order! Everyone! Quiet!”

  James spoke from his seat at the defense table. “Wally, I understand. I understand, Wally. I forgive you as a man of God.”

  The judge again made an attempt to establish order, but the commotion in the gallery overwhelmed even the sharp crack of his gavel. Fiore threw up his hands, and I heard him say over the noise, “Stand down, Mr. Brent. Case dismissed.”

  Chaos ruled as the jury was released through a side door and the spectators scrambled for the exits.

  I opened the gate and ran to James. His face was bright with relief. He stretched out his arms, and I hugged him. I felt a rush of energy flow between us, unlike anything I had felt before.

  Honestly, it scared me.

  “James, you won,” I said with my face pressed against his shoulder. “I’m so happy for you. Thank God this is over.”

  Chapter 79

  JAMES PUT his hand at my waist and guided me through the surging throng inside the courthouse and out to the street. Gleaming black limos waited for us at the curb and minutes later delivered us to Kyle Richardson’s office at Park Plaza.

  There were buckets of champagne on ice in the glass-walled conference room in the sky where, only weeks before, Cardinal Cooney had tried to bully James into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit.

  The room filled with giddy lawyers and staff until there was standing room only. Richardson toasted James, and James returned the toast with a wholehearted thanks to the entire team for believing in him. And he thanked me, too.

  “Friends, if you don’t know her, this is Brigid Fitzgerald. She introduced me to Kyle and hung in, believing in me and supporting me throughout this awful ordeal. Brigid, you’ve done a wonderful thing here. I can’t thank you enough.”

  I waved away the compliment as a young associate came into the room with the latest headlines on his phone.

  “Everyone, listen up,” he said. “This is the Globe quoting His Eminence Cardinal Brian Cooney. ‘We thank the Lord that Father Aubrey was acquitted. We have always believed in his innocence and forgive his accuser. We pray Wallace Brent will seek forgiveness from God.’”

  The hypocrisy was dazzling, and Richardson nailed it, saying, “What bullshit.”

  A hundred people applauded.

  An hour later, James and I tripped down the stairs to St. Paul’s basement, where the congregation had pulled together an impressive spread of food and drink in the brightly lit, low-ceilinged room.

  James made a short, heartfelt speech about friends and faith and closed by saying, “Thank you all for believing in me. It means so much.”

  Men and women crowded him, hugged him, and told him that they never doubted him. We drank wine from Styrofoam cups and ate home-baked sugar cookies, and after the last well-wishers called out their good-byes, James invited me to the rectory.

  “I really need to feed my poor cat,” he said.

  While James fed Birdie and changed out of his suit, I plopped onto the sofa. I kicked off my shoes and leaned back so that I could really take in the quaint painting over the mantel of Jesus carrying the lamb.

  I must have dozed off, because I started when James came into the sitting room. He wore khakis and a blue shirt, and his hair was wet. There was a look on his face that I couldn’t quite read.

  He was nervous, I saw that, but I had no idea why. He pulled a chair up to the sofa, sat in it with his hands clasped in his lap, and said, “Brigid, now that I’m free of this trial, I want to tell you my plans.”

  Plans? What plans?

&
nbsp; “Don’t hold back,” I said. “You know my shock threshold is quite high.” I put my hand above my head.

  He grinned.

  “Okay. I’m leaving St. Paul’s. After the way the archdiocese treated me, I just can’t be their kind of priest any longer.”

  I stared at him blankly, finally managing to get out, “What will you do?”

  “There may be a place for me in a little church near Springfield. It’s a farming town. I like the authenticity of that. I want to try it out.”

  “You’re leaving Cambridge?”

  “As soon as I can. I have to ask you a favor. Will you keep Birdie for me? I don’t want to leave her. And I don’t know where I’m going to live. Everything is going to be in flux for a while and…Will you?”

  “Okay,” I said, still rocked by his news. “I’ve never had a cat.”

  “Thanks, Brigid. I really appreciate this.”

  James put the kitten in a carrier and toys and a bowl into a shopping bag, and then he walked me home.

  For the first time, I felt awkward around James.

  He was saying that he would notify the archdiocese in the morning, that he would tell the congregation the news on Sunday. I nodded, thinking that St. Paul’s Church would feel so empty without him. That I would feel empty, too.

  When we reached my front stoop, James bent to the carrier and stroked Birdie’s face through the grille.

  “You behave yourself, Birdie.”

  He stood up and smiled at me, wrapped me in a hug, and said, “Thanks again, Brigid. You’ll be in my prayers.”

  I felt that rush again, both exciting and frightening. I held on to him, feeling everything: the pounding of my heart, the tears in my eyes, the sound of his breathing, and the warmth of his cheek against mine.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” I said.

  “I hope so. Be safe. I’ll miss you.”

  He kissed my cheek before releasing me and headed off up the street.

  I climbed my stoop, holding the carrier with a crying kitten inside, and when I turned to look after James and wave good-bye, he had already rounded the corner.

  He was gone from my life. Just gone.

  Chapter 80

  AS THINGS turned out, I didn’t have time to think about what James was doing in the next chapter of his life.

  Birdie was a slippery, scampering handful. She thought my two-story house was built just for her and loved racing up and down the stairs, hiding in the laundry pile, pushing her tail in my face when I took to my laptop, and pawing the screen as my typing made the letters appear.

  This orange pile of fluff made me laugh out loud, and at night, she slept on my pillow, right next to my face.

  In the morning, Birdie woke me up by patting my nose and giving me a long, insistent meow.

  “I get it, Birdie,” I’d say.

  I would feed her, turn on Animal Planet, set her up for her day before getting ready for my own.

  I loved my job at Prism.

  The brisk two-block walk to work was an excellent transition from the stability of my home to Prism, which was the center of a storm from the beginning to the end of the day.

  Prism’s clients needed medical care, psychological counseling, and breakfast, and everything we did for them had to be documented, filed, and printed out for the patient.

  Over the next few months, my job responsibilities expanded, then doubled again. One of my grant papers got a hit, and we received a tidy windfall from an NGO. Four months into my employment, we opened a pharmacy in the empty storefront next door.

  Our director, Dr. Dweck, was funny, expansive, and very loving. He used his platform at Prism to take our message about the dangers of drug use to schoolkids in our community.

  “Synthetic marijuana isn’t marijuana,” he’d say. “It’s two percent marijuana, ninety-eight percent unregulated components, which is as good as a hundred percent poison. This is a high that kills, get me?”

  I volunteered often to go with Dr. Dweck to these schools. It felt good being with young kids who laughed and sang, weren’t sick, dying, orphaned, tortured, or homeless.

  Father Alphonse McNaughton took over at St. Paul’s.

  He was a traditional priest who stuck to the book, and his homilies were solid if not inspirational. I was asked to help with church benefits, and I always said, “Yes. When?”

  Along with my job at Prism, good works were bringing me not just peace but joy, too.

  Kyle Richardson took me on as a client, and together we set up a private foundation. I thought Karl would have approved of my anonymously donating his money to Boston clinics for the poor. My “father” and I had no contact, but when I learned that he had been admitted to an in-house drug rehab facility, I made sure that whatever Harvard’s health insurance didn’t cover was settled anonymously from my account.

  When I came home at night exhausted from the activities of the day, unrest settled over me, and sadness rolled in like high tide beneath a full moon. James and I exchanged a few texts, but they were so impersonal, I felt worse after writing to him.

  I prayed. I wrote in my journal daily, adding new stories of individual lives to my collection of hundreds. I entertained Birdie, and she did the same for me.

  But I still felt less than whole.

  I knew what was missing. I wasn’t at the center of anyone’s life. I was really alone, and midnight was the loneliest time of all.

  That was when I thought of Karl and the best of our times, which had been spent lying together in bed, our sides touching, our fingers entwined, telling each other about what we had each lived through and felt since saying good-bye that morning.

  And I ached for our baby. My instinct to check on her at night was still alive, even though Karl and Tre were not.

  So every night, I draped my orange tabby cat over my shoulder, and I climbed the stairs. We got into bed, and I thanked God for all the good things in my life.

  I closed my eyes, and then a paw would tap my nose, a yowl would ensue, as another morning arrived.

  Chapter 81

  ON A dark January morning, a blizzard fell on Boston and wrapped it in a cold, blinding hug.

  When I arrived at Prism, homeless people bundled in rags were piled up three deep against the storefront. There were no lights inside the facility, and no one was home.

  Rob called me. He was stuck in a snowdrift on Pearl Street. I had never needed a key to Prism, and I didn’t have one now.

  Louise, our nurse practitioner, had a spare, and she was on the way, but before she arrived, someone hurled a spanner through the glass of our new pharmacy. The opportunity to steal drugs was too good to pass up, and people poured in through the shattered plate-glass window.

  I dialed 911 and was yelling to the operator that we needed squad cars, pronto, when a boy of about ten threw his arms around my waist and cried, “Don’t let them take Mommy to jail. Please.”

  I hugged him back as people eddied around us and snow obliterated the curbs and hydrants along Putnam Avenue. Louise called out to me over the wail of sirens as she came up the sidewalk toward Prism, her head lowered against the driving snow. As squad cars streamed onto the street with red lights flashing, my phone rang in my hand.

  “Rob? It’s a mess. But Louise—”

  “Brigid. It’s James.”

  “What?”

  It was too much to comprehend in one second.

  The boy broke away from me, Louise struggled with the door lock, dark figures scattered with bags of drugs in their arms, and cop radios snapped and crackled around us.

  “James!” I shouted into the phone. “I can’t talk now.”

  “Call back when you can,” he said.

  It took all morning to sort out the chaos. Our clients were let inside. The young boy found his mother, and they came in for coffee and a good cry. Rob arrived by ten and shouted orders in the calmest possible way. When I finally got to my office, shed my coat, scarf, and mittens, I hit the Return Call button
on my phone.

  “James?”

  “Everything okay?” he asked me.

  “For the moment,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Can you take a break for a day or so? I want you to see what I’m up to.”

  “James. Tell me. What is it?”

  “Telling you will spoil the fun. You have to see this for yourself. Expect the unexpected.”

  I was actually a little annoyed. I hadn’t heard from James in months, hadn’t seen him in more than a year, and now he was telling me to drop everything, and he wouldn’t tell me why.

  “Will you come?” he asked.

  “There’s a blizzard here,” I said, “if you didn’t know. A whopper. And I have a job. And a cat.”

  “When the blizzard moves on, see if you can take a few days off,” said James. “And bring the cat.”

  Chapter 82

  SNOW WAS still banked alongside the Mass Pike as I drove my rented Camaro two hours from Boston to the small town of Millbrook, Massachusetts, population just under two thousand.

  The GPS directed me to the only traffic light in town, and I parked at my destination: a little old clapboard-sided church that had probably been built in the late eighteen hundreds.

  Birdie was in her carrier in the front seat, next to me. She had been intermittently singing along with my playlist but had finally gone to sleep.

  I got out of the car to get a better look at the church—and I liked it. It was definitely showing its age, but it had come through the years in classic form and with its dignity, bell tower, and spire intact.

  Beyond the church was a two-lane road flanked by small shops and spiked with large, bare-limbed trees growing between them. American flags hung outside the fire department and post office, and pickups sat parked along the road.

  Looking back again at the classic old church, I wondered if it held the surprise James had teased me with, and I wondered again what it could be. I told Birdie I’d be right back, then headed up a stone path to the church.