Woman of God Read online

  Chapter 92

  THE STILLNESS of winter was ideal for hunkering down indoors, making a home, and making love with consequences.

  I screamed when I saw the two blue bars on the home pregnancy test, and James shouldered open the bathroom door, afraid of—I don’t think he knew what.

  “James! Look.”

  I showed him the test strip, and I told him what it meant. He grabbed me, lifted me into the air, and told me what a wonderful woman I was.

  It was a fantastic moment, and James’s joy over the baby I would be having knit us even closer as we planned for our future family. We had met in a church, married in one, made a baby here, too. I felt triply blessed, and I wanted to try for a grand slam.

  I knew that G.S.F. had a limited capacity to love, but we had been in touch. He was dying. I wanted to give him some good news.

  I called. I told him, “I’m going to have a baby.”

  He said drily, “Congratulations, Dorothy.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was being snide or if he actually thought that I was my mother. He may have been confused because of the drugs, or maybe he was just lost in the past.

  “It’s Brigid, Dad. I’ll send you pictures after the baby comes,” I said.

  A week later, Kyle Richardson called to say he’d been notified that G.S.F. had died.

  I sat for a long time at my desk in the rectory, remembering my father. The bean-sized place where I had quarantined thoughts of him burst open and flooded my mind. I was both in the rectory and in my house on Jackson Street as a teen. My mother was in a drugged sleep in their bedroom, and George and I were in the kitchen, where he was reading my essay on epic poetry.

  His criticism was scathing. I was just fourteen, two grades ahead of other kids my age, still fearful of his enormous, condescending presence. But I stood up for myself that day.

  “You’re being too hard on me, Dad. Don’t forget. I’ve been getting As.”

  He had taken a pen and written across the entire face of the paper, C–. Sloppy thinking. G. S. Fitzgerald.

  I wouldn’t be able to turn the paper in the next morning. I would have to retype and probably rewrite it again. I shouted, “I hate you!”

  And he said, “Hate me all you want. Someone has to give you standards. You need something to push against, Snotface.” And then he quoted Nietzsche, saying, “‘What does not kill me makes me stronger.’”

  I was furious. After telling him that I hated him, I shouted, “I wish you were dead!”

  I didn’t want to remember that, but now that he was dead, I had no defense against it.

  I remembered that I rewrote the paper. I got an A+. I didn’t tell him. George gave me plenty to push against until the day my mother died and I finally freed myself.

  But had I?

  After Harvard, I had gone to one of the most rigorous medical schools anywhere. I had achieved high grades, and I had gone to one of the arguably most savage places on earth to practice medicine. Not once but twice.

  There was no denying it in this moment, when I was all alone with the memory of the man who had stood in for my unknown father. What hadn’t killed me had indeed made me stronger. And now I missed the son of a bitch who had been the dominant influence in my life to this day.

  Of course I forgave him. Why couldn’t I do it when he was alive?

  I folded my arms on my desk then, put my head down and cried. I cried for the caring moments we never shared, for the fact that he had never told me he loved me and that I understood now that he had loved me. I cried because he hadn’t known Karl and he would have liked and respected him. He hadn’t known Tre and would never know the child I was carrying.

  I cried because my father was gone.

  When I was all sobbed out, I washed my face.

  Then I went down to the church and prayed for G.S.F.’s immortal soul.

  Chapter 93

  WINTER MONTHS flew by, and while unique and devastating weather patterns disrupted growing seasons around the globe, spring unfurled in western Massachusetts with leaves and buds and red-breasted robins.

  The first Sunday in May, James presented a woman priest to our congregation. Yes, a woman priest. Her name was Madeline Faulkner, and we welcomed her at JMJ with applause and coffee and sugar cookies in the basement room.

  Madeline was in her mid-thirties, had degrees in theology and law, and had missionary experience in the Amazon. She made a presentation to the congregation and was welcomed and well received. If the archdiocese knew or cared about this new priest, they didn’t say anything to us.

  That evening, Madeline, Bishop Reedy, James, and I had dinner in our oaken kitchen: chicken stew and honeyed tea and fresh apple pie.

  Madeline asked me, “Have you seen the film Pink Smoke over the Vatican?’

  I hadn’t.

  “It’s about a movement that began back in 2002,” she said. “Seven women were ordained in international waters, outside the reach and regulations of the Roman Catholic Church. Incredible, really.

  “Women protesting the exclusion of women by the conclave that chose Pope Benedict released a cloud of pink smoke in front of U.S. cathedrals in Rome. Other women, in support of female ordination, did the same in the streets and from balconies throughout the world. Pink smoke, Brigid.”

  I said, “White smoke rises from the Vatican when a Pope is chosen…”

  “That’s it,” said Madeline. “Pink smoke suggests that one day we could have a female pope.”

  “May we live so long,” Bishop Reedy said.

  Reedy, James, and Madeline proceeded to quote historic church elders who laid down Church law blocking women from the priesthood.

  It was quite hilarious, really, to listen to the three of them snapping out quotes from ancient history that still lived today.

  “Paul,” said Reedy. "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don’t permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be silent.”

  “Tertullian,” James said, grabbing my hand. “Woman is ‘the devil’s gate.’”

  “Timothy,” said Faulkner. “‘I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.’” She banged the table with her fist for emphasis, and we all laughed.

  As for me, I counted my blessings: I had love. I had friends. I had a baby on the way, and I was helping clergy who came to JMJ seeking guidance on opening breakaway churches like ours. A dozen new JMJ churches modeled on ours had started up throughout the Northeast in this past year. Congregations had opened their minds and their doors. Under the name of the church, the acronym JMJ was posted on the churches’ signs and doorways to let worshippers know that all were welcome.

  I was excited to be at ground zero of this sea change in Catholicism. A woman priest. A married priest. Inclusiveness was catching fire. What next?

  Chapter 94

  WE NAMED our 110 percent healthy baby girl Gillian, and she became Gilly before we had even left the hospital. She was bright pink, had James’s blue eyes and my red hair, a glass-shattering scream, and she was absolutely beautiful, made with love.

  James beheld his daughter with such awe, handled her with such tenderness, that it felt to me that he couldn’t believe that he had actually fathered a child.

  He kept saying, “Brigid, look at her.”

  “I see her. I see her.” I brushed her wispy hair with my fingertips. “Gilly, open your eyes.”

  I’d gotten to know and love this baby deeply while I carried her, but when she was inside me, she reminded me of the months I had carried Tre and how much I had loved that little girl.

  But when Gilly was first put into my arms, my heart swelled so much, I could hardly breathe, and, while I would never stop missing my firstborn, I was overcome with love for Gilly, more than I could possibly say.

  I didn’t let Gilly out of my sight. And that was exactly how she wanted it. She slept in our room, and when I took a new job at the Maple Street Clinic, only a few blocks fro
m the church, I took Gilly with me. I commandeered an office next to mine, had a door installed between us so that I could watch her all day. Worse yet, I documented her waking and sleeping hours, her appetite and her bodily functions, in my journal. I was keeping a medical chart. I was that terrified that she might for some reason die.

  It was nuts, but I forgave myself for being overprotective. And James forgave me, too. Gilly must have approved of the care she was getting, because she kept growing and thriving. I finally exhaled when she was six months old and I let James take her out of the house without my hovering over them.

  Meanwhile, media storms continued to rage around our home.

  The press knew of Gilly’s birth, and James’s being a married priest with a child added to his colorful history and mine, creating too much human interest to be ignored. It was as if the tiny farm town of Millbrook, Massachusetts, were outlined on the map in red marker pen and reporters had stuck innumerable pins in it.

  We’d been married for just over a year and a half on the day I plucked our baby out of her bouncy seat and said to James, “Expect the unexpected.”

  “Wait. That’s my line.”

  “Yep. I’m just borrowing it. You can have it back later.”

  We three dodged the ever-present media vans at the intersection, cut through a lane between two cornfields, and connected up with a side street where I’d parked my car overnight.

  During the mystery drive, I told James that our landlord owed money to the bank and that our rent wasn’t covering it. He had decided to sell JMJ.

  “I can’t believe this,” James said.

  “I negotiated with the bank, and if you agree, I want to pay off the mortgage. We’ll own the church outright.”

  “How much is it?”

  “I can afford it.”

  “Really? Oh. Wow. I should have guessed by now that you are loaded, Brigid.”

  He said that without judgment, but, still, he sounded wounded.

  “I was waiting for the right time to tell you. Is this the right time?”

  “This church. You want it, too?” he asked me.

  “Yes, I really do.”

  Minutes later, we entered the Springfield Bank and Trust. Mrs. Stanford was waiting for us. She motioned us into chairs in front of her desk and asked to hold Gilly.

  “Gilly,” she said, “you are absolutely breathtaking.”

  Gilly pinched the nice lady’s nose.

  We signed the papers and bought a church, and on the way home, we took the truck into a car wash. Going through that watery tunnel just amazed and delighted Gilly. She laughed, waved her hands, and burbled, making her doting parents simply fall apart.

  If I noticed the silver hatchback that seemed to be around the church a lot and that had been two cars in back of us on the way to Springfield, it didn’t register enough for me to even mention it to James.

  “We own our home, sweet home,” James said as we headed back to Millbrook. “You’re stuck with me now, girls. Lucky, lucky me.”

  Chapter 95

  WHEN MADELINE Faulkner became the pastor of a church in Pennsylvania, she was barraged by every type of media attention, from blog articles on both sides of the controversy, to unrelenting network-news pieces. A woman priest was a huge story, and my old school friend Tori Hewitt sent me links to the Italian news coverage of American Catholic heretics.

  I was amazed to see our names and faces: James’s, Bishop Reedy’s, Madeline’s, and mine, all of us accused of blasphemy in top newspapers and glossy magazines.

  Meanwhile, right here at home, protesters surrounded JMJ and shouted at our parishioners as they came to church. Being at the center of what could turn into mass hysteria made me sick. James was also distraught. He prayed for guidance, and he apologized to the town for the way our presence had disturbed the peace, and he thanked town leaders for their understanding.

  In fact, I wasn’t sure the town board had our backs.

  One morning, Gilly and I were just yards from the entrance to the Maple Street Clinic when that silver hatchback that I’d noticed peripherally cruised up to the sidewalk and braked hard.

  The man in the driver’s seat buzzed down his window and shouted, “Hey! Brigid!”

  He was square-faced and flushed, with thinning brown hair and a thick, workingman’s build. I didn’t know him, had never seen him before. I put Gilly behind me, stood between her stroller and the car, and asked the red-faced man, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “You’re doing the work of the devil, Brigid. I know it. God knows it. We’re not going to let you get away with this.”

  We? There was no one else on the street—no cars, no pedestrians—which was absolutely normal for Maple Street at nine a.m.

  I said, “Are you threatening me?” And when he didn’t answer, I dug into my enormous handbag, filled with baby things, and searched for my phone.

  I felt ridiculous, but I said, “I’m calling for help.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Do it. Go ahead.”

  Then he stepped on the gas, and his car shot down the street like a missile. I memorized his license plate, and once I’d settled Gilly into her office crib, I called the sheriff.

  “A lot of people are mad at you JMJ’ers, Dr. F.,” said Sheriff Munroe. “Just avoid this guy. He’s just shooting off his mouth.”

  My next call was to my attorney, Kyle Richardson. I told him that I’d been threatened by someone who had acted truly crazy. “I have his plate number.”

  Kyle made calls, and by the end of the day, I knew the name of the man who’d said I was working for the devil, and that he meant to stop me.

  His name was Lawrence House, and he was a former town councilman, now divorced, but, according to police reports, he didn’t consider the divorce to be valid.

  Kyle told me, “His ex-wife has complained about him, but she didn’t make it official. The cops went to her place a few times, walked him out, and warned him not to bother her or the children, and he backed off. He doesn’t have a record.”

  That Sunday, JMJ was packed again. The young people in Millbrook weren’t discouraged by the press gaggle lining the street. In fact, many of them waved at the cameras and even spoke with reporters before going inside.

  James was giving his homily when a man stood up several rows back from where I was sitting with Gilly and shouted, “None of you are Catholics! You will be damned to hell. Especially you, James Aubrey. Especially you, Brigid Fitzgerald.”

  It was Lawrence House.

  As ushers tried to escort House out of the church, he got away from them and pulled a gun. I saw the flash of metal in his hand. Adrenaline shot my heart into overdrive.

  I yelled, “Everyone get down!”

  The family in the pew in front of me dove for the floor. Pews tipped, making shocking cracks against the floorboards, and people screamed. I hid behind the pew and covered Gilly’s body, but in my mind, I saw that lunatic level his gun at James.

  James said calmly, “Guns don’t belong in the house of God.”

  “I have a carry license!” House shouted. “I can bring it anywhere.”

  Pandemonium erupted as some people tried to hide and others broke for the doors. Everything happened so fast that when I looked up, I was surprised to see that James and several of the young men in the congregation had tackled House and were holding him down.

  I scooped up the gun from where it had fallen as if I were fielding a bunt, and then I called the police.

  This time, they came.

  Chapter 96

  THEY MET over drinks in the archbishop’s office at the end of the day.

  Cardinal Cooney was cheerful. The men assembled around the fine cherrywood conference table in the plain, white room were the best lawyers in the city and probably the state.

  Cooney knew all four of them personally and well: Harrington, Leibowitz, Flanagan, and Salerno. He played golf with them and belonged to the same political party, banked in the same banks. The
re were two other people at the table, his right-hand man, Father Peter Sebastian, who was Harvard Law, and Fiona Horsfall, a public-relations heavyweight.

  They had worked together and had contained most of the garbage that had come out about the Boston Archdiocese after James Aubrey had been exonerated. After Aubrey got off scot-free from the charges against him, Horsfall had fashioned a campaign to make both him and the Church look as good as possible.

  That wouldn’t be their goal today.

  Cooney made sure everyone was comfortable, then said, “It starts with Aubrey. He’s the match to the gasoline. Breakaway churches are bad enough, but a runaway trend is intolerable.

  “Peter. You went to the wedding. Tell us about it.”

  Father Sebastian clasped his hands together in front of him on the table and talked about Jesus Mary Joseph Catholic Church.

  “It’s about three thousand square feet and almost primitive. I sat through the Mass, and Aubrey is charismatic in the modern sense of the word. He could have done well in politics. He’s freewheeling. He does a credible job, but he makes off-handed comments. He answers questions during the service. He reads messages about headlights being left on in the parking lot.

  “What he lacks in gravitas, he makes up in sociability. I think he can move people. Well, that’s self-evident.”

  Cooney said, “Thank you, Peter. I guess Jesus had some of these traits, which is why I boil Aubrey’s influence down to one word. ‘Dangerous.’

  “Right now, we have the upper hand,” Cooney said to the group. “What’s our best move? Can we sue him for abuse of the word ‘Catholic’ when he defies the legitimate doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church?”