My family watched me anxiously as I poured the dessert wine (Neirsteiner Glocke Eiswein), passing Rosemarie’s upturned glass as I always did.
They knew something was up.
We had admired the prints for the new show, devoured Rosemarie’s beef bourguignonne and savored the chocolate cream pie with chocolate sauce.
There remained only the Eiswein and the usual songfest.
I guess my tension gave the game away. Rosemarie was watching me suspiciously.
One more toss of the dice. Hell, I was on a roll.
I raised a Waterford goblet. “I propose a toast to my good wife, who put this show back on the track, despite the fact that, as her daughter… her elder daughter, that is … will tell you, I’ve been crabby because of my work in becoming a doctor. And she will add that I’m not a real doctor like Ted, either. Anyway, to Rosemarie!”
“To Rosie!” they all shouted.
She blushed, pleased and flattered. And temporarily off-guard.
“And to the new engagement ring, not quite on the tenth anniversary of the first one, but still one she’s deserved for the last ten years.”
Rosemarie bashfully held up her right hand, on which the new ruby glittered.
“The Depression must be over at last,” Dad observed with a cheerful wink.
“No interruptions,” I begged.
“Whose charge account is it on?” Jane lifted her glass.
“I’m not sure.” Rosemarie shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t had the nerve to ask.”
I had bought it for her after leaving Bob Roache’s office with the extra two thousand I had in my hip pocket, just in case.
I confessed to Rosemarie, because she would have figured it out anyway, that I’d thought of the new ring when I saw Dr. Stone’s.
“If you don’t mind”—she kissed me again—“I won’t wear it to her office. It might distract both of us.”
“If you’re all finished with your cheap cracks”—I held the goblet in the air—“to Rosemarie’s new ring and all it represents.”
“Hear! Hear!” Ed Murray shouted.
“Hear! Hear!” Timmy Boylan echoed.
I took a deep breath and glanced at each of the members of my family around the dinner table. Well, here goes. …
“Rosemarie”—I turned the crystal stem carefully in my fingers—“without whom none of the crazy O’Malleys would be as happy as they are!”
“Hear! Hear!” Ted raised his glass.
“Hear! Hear!” they all responded.
“I don’t have to listen to his crap,” she screamed. She bolted from her chair and charged toward the dining room door.
Around the table, everyone stared in astonishment.
The fat was in the fire. I had better think quickly.
“Don’t you dare leave this room, Rosemarie,” I barked at her.
She stopped in the doorway.
“Come back here.”
You win one, you push your luck.
She came back.
“Sit down.”
Sullenly she sat, and prepared to assail us.
“And be quiet.”
She closed her mouth.
“Now listen to us.”
She scowled, a caged leopard being tormented by trainers.
I wondered if anyone would understand what was happening. If they knew what was happening, who would take the lead?
Astonishingly, it was Michael.
“How many times a week do I phone you, Rosie?”
“Two or three,” she grumbled.
“At least.”
“All right, at least.”
“Have you ever given me bad advice?”
“I don’t think so.” She was staring at her hands, white and clenched on the table in front of her.
“Would I be a priest if it were not for you?”
“How do I know?”
“Rosie?”
“Well, maybe not.”
Then the brothers-in-law joined in.
“I’d be a very junior partner in Doctor’s surgery,” Ted said, “if it was not for you. And I remind you that’s an exact quote from your warning.”
“And I’d be a bitter bachelor,” Vince added. “That’s a quote too.”
“Hey,” Timmy joined in, “I’d still be in Ireland if you hadn’t sent this beautiful woman to drag me home.”
We were doing nicely.
Ed grinned cheerfully, the South Side joker even in times of stress. “Hell, Rosie, you found me a wife; maybe she is too refined for the South Side, but I couldn’t have done much better myself.”
“You didn’t save our marriage, Rosie.” Dad was smiling broadly. “You just made it better than we ever thought it could be.”
Peg and Jane were both crying.
Jane tried to speak and broke down completely
“Making you part of the family,” Peg sobbed, “was the best thing that ever happened to us. Oh, Rosie, you dear, sweet goof, why try to deny what is so obvious. We all needed you. We still do.”
“I’d be dead.” Cordelia Murray was dry-eyed, but so sad that her face would break your heart. “I mean that, Rosie, dead.”
“Mom?” I asked. “We haven’t heard the final word yet.”
“Well, dear”—she sighed—“I don’t know what all the fuss is about. We loved you, Rosemarie, from the very beginning because you were so sweet and good and lovable. And then you loved us back. And it’s worked out wonderfully.”
The only dry eyes at the table were my wife’s.
She glared around the room, humiliated and enraged.
Christopher, I prayed, if your good spirit is near, help her.
Then my Rosemarie’s lips began to twitch and her eyes began to sparkle. In the end she would be saved by her inability to resist the temptation to a comic line.
“Well, regardless”—she waved her hand in a zany slice at the air—“who else would take care of the crazy O’Malleys?”