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  James was a soft-spoken but powerful orator. People nodded as he spoke to his ever-expanding flock. But he didn’t tell them what I knew.

  Cardinal Cooney had called James several times, making serious threats: excommunication for one, and a civil trial on the grounds that James was defiling the brand of the Roman Catholic Church by advancing “seditious ideas” and, in so doing, “undermining the Word of God.”

  How could Cardinal Cooney hope to succeed with these charges? James was doing God’s work, not just in JMJ but in the community that surrounded Millbrook. He was helping the poor, finding jobs for the unemployed, visiting the jail in Springfield, and generally bringing out the best in people. Three other JMJ churches had sprung up in Massachusetts, and I thought that was what had inflamed the archdiocese.

  JMJ was spreading.

  The choir of young girls was singing when my phone buzzed from my skirt pocket.

  It was Kyle Richardson.

  “Brigid,” he said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but G.S.F. is in Mass General. He’s been diagnosed with lung cancer. Stage four. He’s asking for you.”

  “What?” I said stupidly.

  Kyle said, “He wants to see you before he dies.”

  Chapter 88

  MY FATHER wanted to see me before he died, but I didn’t want to see him. I’d filed G.S.F. away in a box the size of a small bean in the back of my mind and almost never thought of him at all. But I remembered what he said when I’d seen him last: that he had put food on the table, pulled strings to get me into Harvard, and put up with my so-called crappy attitude.

  True enough.

  So it came down to duty. He asked for me, and I owed him for all the things he’d given his wife’s bastard child.

  The Clinton Family Home was a nursing home near the town of Westbrook, in an agricultural plain thirty-five miles north of Boston. The sprawling facility had roofs topped with cupolas, walls of windows and balconies looking over a western view of endless meadows and pasture land.

  I entered G.S.F.’s private room as a nurse was leaving with his lunch tray. He was sitting up in bed, looking pale and thin and just as forbidding as ever.

  “Dad,” I said.

  The word just jumped out of my mouth. I went to his bedside and kissed his cheek, and he said, “Take a seat.”

  “Sure.” I dragged a hard-backed chair to his bedside, sat down, and asked, “How are you feeling?”

  “They won’t give me my drugs, Brigid. Why not? What’s the difference at this point if it’s heroin or methadone?”

  “Heroin is illegal,” I said.

  “I think you can get me out of here,” he said, plucking at the tape holding an IV in place in his arm.

  The veins in his arm looked like major highways on a map of the Midwest. Must’ve been a nightmare to find a good one.

  “Leave that alone,” I said.

  He sighed and looked at me with a question in his eyes.

  I wondered if he was going to apologize to me for twenty years of tough love without the love. I wondered if he was going to ask for forgiveness.

  But he said, “This is it, Brigid. I don’t mind. Take it from the great Franz Kafka: ‘The meaning of life is that it stops.’”

  He went into a coughing fit that lasted three or four minutes and must have hurt like hell.

  I stood and put my hand on his back, keeping my eyes on the IV line, making sure that he didn’t yank it out, and finally he pulled himself together.

  He sipped water, then launched another lofty quote from the dead writers’ and philosophers’ society. “As Socrates so wisely said, ‘The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.’”

  “You’re thinking of God? Would you like to pray?”

  “Hell, no.”

  He tried to laugh and was overcome with a coughing fit, spitting blood into tissues, and the chest spasms kept on coming.

  A buzzer dangled from the side rail. I thumbed it hard.

  A nurse came in, took a look at George, and left. She returned a minute later and gave him a shot.

  “You need anything else?” she asked him.

  “What else have you got?”

  “I’ll check in on you before I go off duty.”

  He waved her off as if he were flicking away a fly.

  But he did settle down. I sat beside him, watching blue skies and fluffy clouds through his windows, and tried to call up a good memory of me and G.S.F. watching a movie, or a ballgame, or driving somewhere or dancing to something. I came up with no good memories. But I did remember the harsh criticism, rejection, and unapologetic neglect.

  “Dad,” I said. “You wanted to see me?”

  “I did?”

  “Didn’t you? Kyle said you asked for me.”

  “Oh. I don’t remember. I was just thinking of something Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote. ‘Death should take me while I am in the mood.’ And I am in the mood, Brigid. My will is out of date, and I fired my lawyer. But stop off at the house. Take the books and pictures.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Feel better.”

  He fell asleep then. It was the drugs, not death. I stood looking at him, thinking of him, my mother, our small house on Jackson Street, his inability to forgive my mother for having me or forgive me for being born. And now he couldn’t even say I’m sorry when he was close to death.

  I should forgive him, right? But I didn’t feel it. At all.

  I waved to the nurse on my way out the door.

  Chapter 89

  JAMES HAD asked me to go with him up the steep and narrow staircase to watch the sunrise from the bell tower. The air was chilly, but we sat close together on a bench built inside the railing as daybreak lit the distant hills. I liked this little seat with a view so much. Like the rocky outcropping in the woods behind us, where I had opened my heart to James last year, I felt close to God here. I also felt part of this church, this village, and very connected to James.

  We were holding hands. James looked deep in thought. I asked him what he was thinking, and I was prepared for him to say that he was rehearsing his homily, or that the tower needed painting, or that he missed Harold Noah, a parishioner who had moved away.

  He squeezed my hand and said, “I didn’t think I was ever going to be this happy.”

  “I know. I feel that way, too.”

  But the look on his face actually worried me. He was happy. Okay. Was there a but?

  I flashed on the two of us making love last night on the sofa in front of the fire. I hadn’t seen anything but love and ecstasy on his face. Had something changed after he doused the flames? Had he finally hit a wall of guilt? James was still a Catholic priest who was living with a woman and having unabashed unmarried sex inside a church. Priests had been excommunicated for less.

  James hadn’t spoken since I’d boarded this train of runaway thoughts. He sat still, looking past the big bronze bell, out to the timeless silhouette of the mountains.

  “James? Is something wrong?”

  “I never looked for anything like this,” he said. “I thought I would get my happiness from serving God. From helping people. Maybe from a big plate of fried chicken and potatoes every now and then, and sometimes happiness is a good bed.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  But?

  “I’m so lucky, Brigid. That, despite all the bad stuff I was worried about the morning I met you in St. Paul’s, you spoke to me. And that I recognized you for the good woman you are. I’m lucky. Or God really does love me.”

  “Both, maybe?”

  “Both. Definitely.”

  But?

  “I was thinking that we have an opportunity,” said James. “Well, we have many opportunities, but one in particular.”

  “What kind of opportunity?”

  My mind raced ahead. Opportunity to open yet another JMJ church? Go down separate roads? Take—or, in his case, renew�
��vows of celibacy? What?

  “I want to build a life with you in God’s grace. I love you, and I want to marry you, Brigid. I want to be your husband.”

  Tears were in his eyes.

  Tears sprung into mine, too.

  “Is it okay?” I asked him.

  “Okay to marry? It’s okay with me,” James said. “Is it okay with you?”

  I was laughing and crying at the same time.

  “It’s okay with me,” I said.

  “Thank you, God,” James muttered, grabbing me into a hug. “You scared me for a minute, Brigid.”

  “I scared you? That’s hilarious.”

  “Hang on,” he said. He released me, dug in the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out a little black box. He opened it, and there was a ring winking up at me, with a cornflower-blue center stone and a diamond on each side.

  “I bought it in Springfield,” he said. “I liked the sapphire, but if you don’t like it, we can return it.”

  “Are you kidding? I love it.”

  He told me to stick out my ring finger, and he wiggled the ring onto it. He took both my hands in his and said, “Brigid. Will you marry me?”

  I said, “Yes. I will.”

  I collapsed into his arms, both of us laughing, hugging, rocking, nearly toppling off the narrow bench that was never meant for activity like this.

  When we were somewhat composed, James took me over to the ropes, placed my hands around them and his hands over mine.

  “Thank you, God,” we said together, and together, we rang the bell. Our happiness could be heard all over the town.

  “Amen.”

  Chapter 90

  IT WAS my wedding day.

  I was in the tiny second bedroom in the rectory with four new friends, my bridesmaids from JMJ, who were buttoning me into my ecru satin-and-lace vintage wedding dress and taking pictures. There was hardly room enough for the five of us to stand, so getting me ready for the big day was quite a riot.

  I hoped I was ready.

  Since our bell ringing seven months ago on that crisp February morning, James and I had planned a church wedding that would be true to us and would also approximate Catholic doctrine, which filled a book with rigid rules and rites that couldn’t be personalized or amended.

  We also took turns being scared.

  I pictured my dear Karl, who had died three years ago. Ours was the only marriage I ever expected to have.

  After Karl’s and Tre’s deaths, I was so devastated that even if God Himself had shown me that I would marry again, I would have been appalled.

  James had talked about his little freak-outs, too. He had taken vows of celibacy. He had never planned to marry, and the intimate architecture of a married life wasn’t in his mind. As soon as he married me, he would be laicized, meaning he’d lose his clerical rights and authority.

  He was giving up a lot to be with me.

  After weeks of planning and replanning, we threw the book away. Our love was deep and tested, and we had broken so many rules that crossing the line into a godly but off-road marriage ceremony was just our speed.

  Everyone in Millbrook was invited to the wedding. James spoke to the Millbrook Independent, the town’s online newspaper, saying, “Come to our wedding if you can hear the bells—or think you can.”

  Now, from upstairs in the rectory, I could hear organ music filling the stairwell. Soon I would be walking toward the altar and my new husband. I was humbled, excited, and scared half to death. I was having physical manifestations of all of that—sweating and light-headedness—and then I was falling.

  When I opened my eyes, Dr. Foster was peering down at me, and James was peering over Doc’s shoulder, looking more frightened than when he’d been on trial.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Katherine Ross, my bridesmaid-in-chief, said, “You were buttoning your shoes…”

  Dr. Foster had a stethoscope at my chest. He asked, “Have you eaten today?”

  “Bread. Jam. Coffee.”

  “Have you ever had heart problems?”

  “No, Joel, I haven’t.”

  “How about panic attacks? Ever had one of those?”

  “No.”

  “In that case, you just had your first.”

  Doc Foster and James had each taken one of my hands and had helped me into a chair when Louise Lindenmeyr, my dear friend from Prism, burst in with a bouquet she’d brought from Boston.

  “Brigid. Are you ready? Hey. What’s going on?”

  “I fainted.”

  Louise said with total medical confidence, “James, she’s okay. You get out of here, why don’t you? Brigid? Ready or not, it’s showtime.”

  Chapter 91

  JAMES AND several men from our congregation were straightening up the church after our standing-room-only wedding, and I was doing the same for our living quarters inside the rectory. As I picked up and put things away, hung up my wedding dress and boxed my shoes, I tried to remember everything that had happened today. I wanted to make sure to commit it to memory.

  The first thing I remembered was that when my bridesmaids and I crossed the yard from the rectory to the church, it began to snow. In September. A new weather record.

  Snowflakes swirled around the steeple and the metal folding chairs on the deck, and the decision was made for us. Instead of having the outdoor wedding we had planned, we moved into the church. As Bishop Reedy said before the Mass, “I don’t think this church has been this full since Lincoln was inaugurated.”

  The bishop was a wiry seventy-five-year-old with great strength and flyaway eyebrows and a very loud laugh. He had retired with the archbishop’s permission and was now a full-time farrier, living above his feed store, Reedy’s Feed and Seed.

  Bishop Reedy had always been a bit of a renegade, but for now, at least, he was in good standing.

  The processional to the altar was both hilarious and joyous. All the five-year-olds in town had been asked to be flower kids. They had picked roadside flowers—asters, goldenrods, and daisies—and they’d flung handfuls of them onto the wide board floors. Everyone laughed.

  James looked staggeringly handsome as he waited for me at the front of the church.

  Bishop Reedy beamed.

  He led us through the customary vows: “To have and to hold…until death do us part.”

  Honestly, that one gave me pause. I’d been through the death of a beloved husband before, and, while it was absolutely true that we would die, I didn’t want to think about that today.

  James and I exchanged our own vows after that, each saying, “I promise to love you, to listen to you deeply, to support your passions, to stand with you even when there is chaos around us, to be a safe place for you, forever.”

  After we had pledged our eternal love, Bishop Reedy blessed our rings and said, “You two are married now. James, you may kiss your wonderful bride. Brigid, you may kiss him back.”

  Bishop Reedy had hitched a team of dappled gray draft horses to a farm wagon, and James, Bishop Reedy, and I led the snow-flecked wedding procession to the Candy Factory, a confectionery inside a huge barn on Route 283.

  The snow was like icing on the cake.

  My memory of the receiving line under the hayloft was something of a blur. I know I shook hands with and kissed the cheeks of several hundred well-wishers who showered James and me with blessings.

  James also hugged and kissed me a lot, and we were grinning into each other’s faces when I heard my name. I looked up to see a very tall, dark-haired man coming toward me.

  It was Zach Graham, aka Yank, and I hadn’t seen him since our scooter rides in Rome. I had spoken with him when he called after Karl and Tre died, and since then, we’d texted back and forth during baseball season.

  But I never expected to see him at my wedding. And, frankly, I wasn’t sure he should be here.

  He took my hand in both of his and said, “Sorry for crashing, Brigid, but I could hear the bells in New York. At least, I thought I
could. Actually, I read the invite online.”

  “You’re too funny, Zach.”

  “I’ve very happy for you,” he said. “James looks to be a very good man. And I gather you’re kicking the Church in the butt.”

  “So they say. I’m glad you came, Zach.”

  “Be happy.” He introduced himself to James and said, “Good catch. She’s the best.”

  The sad look in Zach’s eyes told me that he still had feelings for me and that this wasn’t the happiest of occasions for him. Just then, James spoke into my ear.

  “Look. Coming through the door. I don’t believe it.”

  Father Peter Sebastian from the Boston Archdiocese had attended our pretrial meeting in Kyle Richardson’s office, and he had also attended James’s trial. Now, he was at our wedding reception.

  Why?

  Sebastian was slim and dark eyed, and he looked soulful in his formal vestments. He joined the line, and when he was standing in front of me and James, he said very loudly, “His Eminence Cardinal Cooney sent me to inform you that this marriage isn’t accepted by the Church, and, similarly, your other activities are disgraceful and officially forbidden. This is a heads-up. There will be repercussions, James Aubrey.”

  James said, “Only those who wish us well are welcome here, Father.”

  “The cardinal will be in touch,” he said. He nodded at me, a sharp, silent condemnation, and when he was gone, his black presence remained.

  James had squeezed my hand hard and said, “That bastard. Brigid, he’s the cardinal’s spear carrier. Don’t let him bring us down.”

  I said, “No, no, of course not,” but I was so stunned by Sebastian’s pronouncement that even the delicious meal and dancing with my husband failed to undo Cardinal Cooney’s hand-carried warning that was now part of our history.

  “He can’t hurt us,” James had said once we were in bed.

  I wasn’t so sure. Sebastian had come a long way to confront us in person. Cooney wouldn’t deliver a toothless threat. After James fell asleep, I saw Father Sebastian in my mind. There he was, standing before us on our happiest day, and a feeling of dread came over me like a storm cloud crossing a sunny sky. I opened my mind to God, hoping for clarity or guidance. But I was alone, and not even prayer could drive that darkness away.