On Christmas Eve, before Midnight Mass at St. Ursula’s, the crazy O’Malleys gathered around Mom’s harp in our house at East and Greenfield, a harp now the center of attention in her “music room.” We were all there, Jane proudly pregnant for the second time and Ted even more proudly protective; Peg and Vince, who was home on leave; Michael, a tall, quiet priest-to-be; and my shy, distant bride. Michael could not be best man at the wedding because the seminary forbade that (might give bad thoughts!), but he would be the altar server at Mass.
Vince was in uniform, confident and smiling. Peg, more a young April than ever, refused even to think about the possibility of his being sent to Korea. I envied them their seemingly simple, uncomplicated love—though not so much, antihero that I was, that I would have gone back into the service on a trade.
I wrapped my arm around Rosemarie’s shoulders as we sang “O Holy Night”; she was a supple gift, a live teddy bear who felt warm and good in your arms, but not a desirable woman into whose body I would shortly have to enter.
I was now not only worried. I was frightened. I had agreed with her that it would look bad if her father didn’t give her away. How could we ever explain to my parents if he were excluded from the wedding party. I clenched my fist every time I thought of him.
I must have hid it well.
“They blend beautifully, don’t they?” Mom plucked some strings of the harp. “Just like they always did.”
“Let’s see how well they blend next year,” Peg said with a broad grin.
Jane joined the fun. “I’m surprised that Chuck doesn’t look scared. Ted certainly did before our marriage.”
“What’s there to be frightened of?” Michael demanded, “Would sweet little Rosie scare anyone?”
“Brides are always scary,” Dad observed wisely, “especially when they are sweet and beautiful.”
“Me, scary? Quiet, self-effacing Rosemarie?”
General laughter in which I joined, though I didn’t think the conversation funny.
“Now, dears, you should all drink your eggnog while there’s still time so you won’t break your fast for Holy Communion.”
“To Chuck and Rosemarie.” Dad raised the Waterford tumbler. “May they always be as happy as his mom and dad.”
We drank the toast and Rosemarie, flushed and teary, kissed them both. I shook hands, rather formally I fear, with Dad and kissed Mom.
Our marriage had been their dream for years. “Poor little Rosie” would now officially be a member of our family. Strange, mouthy little Chucky would have a wife who would take care of him and love him despite his alleged complexities.
All would live happily ever after.
Eventually we would disappoint them. There would come a Christmas when… but I banished that picture from my head.
Rosemarie drank too much eggnog and could barely walk a straight line to the Communion rail at the first Midnight Mass in my father’s prize-winning church. No one seemed to notice. But she was led off to one of our many guest rooms after Mass.
“No point in her sleeping alone in that drafty old house on Euclid Avenue,” Mom remarked soothingly.
“Only a few more nights without someone else there,” Peg said with a laugh. “I mean if you count Chucky as someone.”
Rosemarie was being married from our home, not from the apartment in Hyde Park nor from the house on Menard. No one discussed the reason for these arrangements. I wondered if, at some level in their serene souls, my family knew about what Jim Clancy had done to their foster daughter.
If they did, they’d never admit it even to themselves.
John Raven was no help when I cornered him in his rectory study on Saint Stephen’s Day. (Under Monsignor Mugsy, the second floor of the rectory was no longer off-limits to laity.)
“Terrified, Chuck? I don’t blame you.” He rocked back and forth with laughter. “The girl will drive you out of your mind. One surprise after another all the days of your life.”
“I’m not exactly terrified, Father.”
“No, but you feel that if you could, you’d call the whole thing off?”
“Maybe only delay it a few months.”
“Too late, my friend, too late!”
“I know that—” I spoke irritably—“but I don’t think it’s very funny.”
“You will eventually.” He stopped laughing long enough to light his pipe. “Most people marry strangers, Chuck; after the wedding come the surprises. Sometimes they’re quite unpleasant surprises. Sometimes … well, they go in the opposite direction.”
“I’ve known her all my life, Father.” I shrugged. “How could I know her any better?”
“Because Rosie’s been around all your life, you can deceive yourself into thinking you know her. She’s a very special girl, Chuck. Larger than life. Magic.”
This was a new theme: Magic Chuck and Magic Rosemarie.
“Beautiful and smart,” I said hesitantly, “and sometimes mysterious and sometimes hilariously funny …”
“That doesn’t even begin to describe her. Take my word for it, young man, it’s going to be a roller coaster, a very pleasant roller coaster, I might add.”
A priest’s-eye view of my bride. Priests, I knew, found women appealing, just like every other normal, healthy man. Since they knew so many women more than just superficially, I presumed that they had a better perspective than most men. So John Raven’s delight in Rosemarie seemed, well, strange. Almost as though he knew that, given different circumstances, he could love her too. I didn’t begrudge him that fantasy. Quite the contrary, he was entitled to it.
He knew about her father, did he not? It was under the seal of Confession, so he couldn’t talk about it; but did he have to pretend to an optimism about us that he couldn’t feel?
“Well, thanks for the reassurance, Father.”
I rose to leave, zipped up my jacket, pulled on my gloves.
He grinned, enormously pleased with the prospects of my downfall. “You think too much, Chuck, you spend too much time analyzing and examining your motives, you try to make the world fit your own outlines.”
“Sounds pretty bad.”
“Not at all. You’re a fine young man,” he said as he led me down the steps to the first floor of the rectory. “Intelligent, ambitious, generous, responsible. Maybe a little bit too conventional in reaction to your flamboyant parents…”
“Dull?” I pulled off my right glove to shake hands with him at the rectory door.
“And probably more gifted than any of you”—he ignored my self-deprecating comment—“in ways you don’t begin to understand yet. Your wife will challenge you to your limits. The surprises may rock you, but they’ll be good for you.”
“My larger-than-life, magic wife?” I shook his firm hand.
“Much larger than life and very magic.”
I left St. Ursula’s rectory more confused than ever. But happier.
After the rehearsal on Friday night Rosemarie once again offered me a chance to leave the sinking ship. We huddled together at the door of the church, shivering in the bitter wind as she told me I was making a terrible mistake.
It would be so easy to postpone the marriage till spring, perhaps a double wedding with Vince and Peg.
I opened my mouth to accept her offer.
Instead I said, “No.”
Could I possibly have refused to run for cover?
“No, what?” she said softly.
“NO!”
“You want to tell everyone that we’ve agreed to postpone the wedding?”
“NO means NO!”
I took her into my arms roughly.
“We will be married tomorrow morning, Rosemarie Helen McArdle Clancy. That is that. Till death do us part. Moreover, it’s not a terrible mistake at all. You’re a very special girl, Rosemarie. Larger than life. Magic. You will be a challenge and a delight for the rest of my life. I’m the luckiest man in the world!”
Who said that? I couldn’t possibly have said that! Could I? Like Peg says my mouth is faster than my mind.
It’s all your fault, I told God as I held my almost-wife to my chest. She leaned against me, breathing deeply, struggling to recover her composure.
Then someone told me something else brilliant to say. “I’m glad you gave me the final chance, Rosemarie, my love. Now I have no doubt what I want. And what I want is you. I want everything that you are, body and soul, hopes and fears, sorrows and joys. Tomorrow night I’m taking on the first taste of a mysterious and glorious meal.”
She giggled. “With chocolate ice cream for dessert?”
“And for salad too.”
So that was that.
I ran through the neighborhood that night, down the streets, through stores and bungalows, dodging in and out of doors and windows, scurrying behind curtains, hiding in empty rooms, racing across Austin Boulevard to Oak Park and then back to Chicago. I didn’t know who was chasing me but they were right behind. Wherever I went they followed after. Finally, at Austin and Division, a streetcar waited for me. As I drew near, it changed its warning bell and then lurched away. I reached for the handrail to pull myself up on the running board and missed. I fell into a snowbank.
Who is chasing me? I demanded. Then I looked around my room and realized that I had been dreaming. I sat up and quivered with the cold of the snow into which I had fallen. It was real, it wasn’t a dream. I had run for hours. Otherwise, why was I cold?
Then I realized that I had left the window open. I jumped out of bed and slammed it shut.
Tomorrow night there would be someone to keep me warm.