“YOU LOOK fine,” I said to Seamus Costelloe in his room in the massive new hospital building. It reminded me of a room in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and probably cost his insurance carrier a lot more.
He grinned and reached out to shake hands with me.
“Going home tomorrow, just a scratch really. Hey, congratulations on the baby. I bet she’s a beauty.”
His geniality was pure South Side Irish, maybe phony, maybe not. He’d practiced it so many times in so many locker rooms, courtrooms, law offices, and rectories that he himself probably no longer knew how authentic it was.
“Looks like her mother.”
“So she has to be. It’s wonderful what they can do with preemies these days. We lost one. Hell on poor Diane.”
Dumb statement.
Sonia, who was sitting in a chair reading Trollop, looked up from her book and frowned at him. He missed it completely.
“Cops know who took the shot at you?”
“Naw! Cops don’t solve crimes. They only make arrests. I could probably get the guy off on a motion for summary judgment.”
OK, Nuala Anne, here I go.
“Well, you know who put out the contract, since you put a countercontract on him.”
“Whadaya mean?” he said, his face turning dark red and his immense jaw tightening.
“Come on, Seamus, we’re both grown-ups. You warned the guy that if anything happens to you or your family, he’s a dead man. Maybe his family is dead, too. He knows you’re tough enough to do just that. Maybe you have put out a provisional contract and maybe not, but he can’t afford to take the chance you haven’t.”
His eyes narrowed into hard little emeralds.
Sonia closed her book, finger in the page, and watched her future father-in-law intently.
“Ya don’t know whadyatalkinbout.”
“Seamus, I’ve been around this city long enough to know that some really tough people play it that way. Your friend the restaurant owner, for instance…”
I suddenly remembered that guy. The Boys tried to blow up his place and missed. He warned them that the whole bunch of them were dead if they didn’t lay off. The Boys, who did not like intimidation, nevertheless backed off.
“The cops tell you this?”
“Cops don’t tell me things,” I said, a half-truth at best.
“You just figure it out?”
“I write novels, Seamus. It’s my job to figure things out.” He relaxed and grinned.
“Well you got a good imagination, I’ll say that for you. Have you imagined who it is?”
“One of your former law partners whom you’re threatening with blackmail!”
IDIOT!
Seamus threw back his head and roared with laughter. Then he coughed and grabbed his shoulder. Sonia put aside her book and firmly rearranged him on the bed. She too was laughing.
“My future daughter-in-law was a nurse,” he gasped, “and I think a concentration camp guard.”
She stopped smiling and returned to her book.
“Well, nice shot anyway, Dermot. You stick to your novels and leave the detective work to others.”
Little did he realize that the detective work was left to either the best or the second-best detective in the city—depending on how you ranked Nuala Anne and the little bishop. (She put him in first place, probably correctly, but he wasn’t fey.)
“Hey, when you gonna pour water on the little tyke?”
“She was baptized in the hospital of course, but we’re going to do the rest of the ceremonies next Sunday at St. Josaphat’s.”
“Where the fuck is that?”
Sonia frowned. Given half a chance she might restore some sanity to the Costelloe clan. Good luck to her.
“Southport Avenue.”
“OK, some of us will be there.”
DELIGHTFUL.
I was thinking the same thing.
Outside the hospital, I phoned Ms. Holmes.
“Mr. McGrail here, aka John Watson, M.D.”
“How do you spell that name?”
“The right way M-c-G-r-a-i-l.”
“Good on you … what did you find out?”
“Well, you were right. He’s put out a countercontract.”
“On whom?”
“I tried a stab in the dark and it didn’t work.”
I recounted my effort and the reaction.
“Och, Dermot Michael wasn’t that a brilliant idea!”
In Irish talk the adjective “grand” is a mild way of saying “super” and if you want a really grand and super word you say “brilliant.”
“Was it now?”
“Maybe not a law partner, but some kind of business partner. You came close enough to scare him; otherwise, he wouldn’t have laughed so hard.”
“Maybe… Everything still peaceful?”
“Dear sweet little Mary Anne is home from school and she sits and stares at her little sister. I think she’s communicating with her.”
“She’s not!”
“Can’t stop her and herself sending reassuring messages of love if she’s doing anything.”
What does a baby think when some other being intervenes in her head? Probably figures it’s all part of the package.
“Better send her out to play with the dogs.”
“Wasn’t I after thinking that very thing meself?”
(“dinkin’ dat very ding”).
“I’m stopping at the Hancock Center for a swim. Gotta get myself in good shape for normal sexual relations tonight.”
“Who ever said tonight?”
I hung up on her.
I used to live in a one-bedroom at the Hancock Center. We hung on to it after our marriage because it was a great investment with a great swimming pool. Also a nice place for a secret rendezvous with my wife.
At home, only Danuta was visible—polishing silverware, a weekly task by her definition.
“Ethne and girl in yard play with dogs, boy play with trucks. Missus and baby nap upstairs. Need naps.”
When she had turned her back, I sneaked upstairs and peered through the slightly open door to the master bedroom. My wife and my daughter, breathing contentedly, were both sound asleep. Beautiful women.
Don’t take her away from us, I begged God, we love her so much.
Then, because my mother had always warned me about being too insistent, I added, it’s up to You of course.
DON’T EVER FORGET TO SAY THAT.
As I admired them, my hungry body filled up with lust for my wife. It had been a long time. I wanted her desperately.
YOU’RE A HORNY BASTARD. SHE’S A NURSING MOTHER WHO HAS JUST SUFFERED THROUGH A TERRIBLE CRISIS WITH A PREMATURE BABY.
“She suggested sex.”
BECAUSE SHE KNOWS WHAT A HORNY BASTARD YOU ARE.
I went out into the yard where Ethne and Nellie were rolling around with the inexhaustible wolfhounds and the Mick was playing with his trucks. I joined him, much to his delight. I was filled with the virtue of a man who knew he was being a good father.
“Time for baths,” Ethne announced as she gasped for breath.
Obediently the two kids followed her into the house. I picked up the Tonka trucks. The two dogs assaulted me. I was only a poor substitute for the kids, but in a pinch I’d do. So I wrestled with them for a while and then, despite their efforts to prevent it, slipped in the back door.
Nuala was not in the parlor or her office. A long nap in preparation for the evening’s amusements.
I withdrew to my office down the hall, turned on my computer, and opened the file of my new novel—all twenty pages of it.
An hour later, when Nuala entered in jeans and a bright Chicago Bears sweatshirt, carrying Socra Marie in a matching sweat suit and an orange Bears blanket, there were twenty-one pages in the file.
I am a fastidious writer.
Or so I tell them.
“Bear down Chicago Bears …” My wife sang the Bears fight song. In May.
“Doesn’t she look wonderful?”
“She does indeed. She also looks like she’d rather go back to sleep.”
“She just woke up and she’s not sure she likes the idea … Here, Socra Marie, Daddy wants to hold you. He’s not doing any work on his friggin’ novel.”
So I took the little mite into my arms, tucked the navy blue-and-orange blanket around her, and regarded her with something like worship.
Her eyes tried to focus on me, failed for a moment, and then succeeded.
“Dada person,” I said.
She continued her close inspection of my face.
“Did the other two explore so seriously?”
“Not at all, at all. The poor little tyke has had so many sensations she just wants to figure some of them out. She’s made up her mind about her sister and us. Doesn’t know yet that her poor brother exists … You did play with him, didn’t you, Dermot Michael?”
“Of course.”
“May I read Neddie’s story?”
“It’s on the desk.”
I continued to hold our four-pounder. Nuala sat on an easy chair next to the desk and read the xerox quickly. Then, as was her custom, she reread it, this time very slowly and carefully.
“The ma is thinking,” I said to our child.
“She knows that,” Nuala frowned.
The little girl snuggled close to me … Well, she really didn’t but I liked to think she did… and continued to study my face.
“Well…” The child’s mother sighed loudly. “Deep waters, Dermot Michael, aren’t they now?”
“I wonder if he kept a diary of the Haymarket story.”
“Sure he did. Wasn’t he a diary-keeping man?”
“I wonder where it is.”
“Where was the one about the Maamtrasna murders?”
“So?”
“Maybe in a rectory here?”
“And which one?”
“What was his parish here?”
“Immaculate Conception on North Park.”
‘And who’s the pastor there?”
“My brother George the Priest.”
“I thought so.”
George was utterly unlike me, medium height, straight brown hair, deft, supple, smooth, charming—the perfect cleric. Nuala Anne, mostly to aggravate me, treated him with enormous respect.
She picked up the phone and punched in a number.
“Good afternoon to you too, young woman.” The thick Galway accent took over. “This is Mrs. Coyne, his riverince’s sister-in-law. Would he ever have a minute for a brief word with me … ah, Father, how you keeping now? Wonderful! We’re looking forward to the Baptism too. Sure, isn’t herself a picture of health and contentment and resting in her father’s arms, not sure who he is at all, at all… You have all those important historical documents down in your cellar, don’t you? Well, I want one of them. The Haymarket book by Edmund Fitzpatrick, the great journalist… Of course it’s there… Just curious, that’s all… Could you bring it along on Sunday … Ah God bless you now…”
She hung up, a beatific smile on her face.
“Isn’t he the nice priesteen?”
“You have him wrapped around your little finger.”
“That’s a terrible, terrible thing to say, Dermot Michael Coyne,” she said complacently.
Then she sighed.
“Don’t we have enough to do with this little hellion”—she removed Socra Marie from my arms—“without worrying ourselves about mysteries from a hundred and fourteen years ago?”
“You have the right of it, Dermot Michael… Well, come along little hellion. You need a bath and a clean diaper and your supper.”
After the kids were in bed, protected by the wolfhounds, and Danuta and Ethne had gone home, we had a leisurely dinner by candlelight, roast beef and the best Barolo and herself in an off-the-shoulder dress. Then we walked up to our bedroom, hand in hand.
Socra Marie was sleeping soundly and peacefully. Fiona, who was on duty in our bedroom, acknowledged our presence with a briefly opened eye.
Nuala let the gown fall off her body.
“A nicely orchestrated seduction, my dear,” I said.
“I thought so too, if I do say so meself.”
A few more deft moves and she was naked in front of me, her hands behind her back, her face glowing with anticipation.
Another wedding night, I thought. Only much better, because we know each other’s moves.
Our love was tender and leisurely, healing and renewing, a symbolic turning point that in the last few moments culminated in astonishing ecstasy.
So noisy was that conclusion that Fiona, who usually ignored human couplings, stirred from sleep and glared at us. Socra Marie, for her part, actually opened her eyes and closed them promptly.
Nuala usually wanted to talk after lovemaking. So we talked.
“You didn’t forget how to do it, Dermot Michael,” she murmured. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Didn’t I say to meself that night in O’Neill’s pub, sure, the man is a bit of an eejit but he’s probably pretty good in bed?”
“I don’t think you said that at all, at all.”
She giggled. “I did so… Dermot love…”
“Uh-huh.” I drew her close so that our bodies touched from head to toe.
“That’s nice… I’m afraid I haven’t been a very good wife all these months.”
She meant it.
“I think you’ve been wonderful.”
“And meself promising you by that awful black gravel beach that I wouldn’t be compulsive about this child.”
“I don’t think you’ve been compulsive about Socra. You responded appropriately to a major challenge in our lives.”
“I didn’t really…”
“You did too really.”
She paused to consider that.
“A little better maybe.”
“Nuala Anne, you have been incredibly mature through this whole crisis.”
A bit of an exaggeration maybe, but close enough to the truth.
“You mean I acted like a grown-up?”
“At least as grown-up as I did, which maybe isn’t saying all that much.”
She kissed me gently.
“We’ve done fine so far with this little imp and herself so serious.”
“She’s just trying to figure out what to laugh at… and whom.”
“Ay, you have the right of it.”
Silence.
Then, “Och, Dermot Michael, aren’t there so many things for us to worry about?”
“Worry?”
“Well,” she said, sighing as though she were preparing a list, “we have to stew about poor Socra Marie and herself not coming down with cerebral palsy, and the Mick that he doesn’t feel left out, and Nellie that she doesn’t become too serious, and Neddie and his wife and the Haymarket Riot, and Seamus Costelloe and that strange crowd of his, and Marie-Bernadette and Jacques-Yves and their career, and not forgetting about our own love… And all the other things.”
I really didn’t want to know what the other things were.
“That’s what we have wives and mothers for, Nuala Anne McGrail. They’re the professional stewers in the family. If they’re Irish it’s Irish stew. Your Irish mothers are really good at Irish stew.”
“Is that all I’m good for, Dermot Michael Coyne?”
“I didn’t say that…”
My fingers began to explore her body again, followed by my lips.
She sighed contentedly.
“We mustn’t wake Fiona and Socra Marie this time.”
I don’t know whether we did or not.