Dead Wrong (6 page)

“Quotas,” Ted pronounced.

“Yes. He thinks it’s feasible to set reasonable quotas for every parish. With most of the parishes banking with the chancery—and even with those who bank independently—McGraw is confident that we can set realistic goals for everybody.”

“And if they don’t meet ’em?”

“That’s McGraw’s fail-safe clause. We know they’ve got the money. If they don’t reach their goals during the drive, we simply take it from their reserves.”

Nash smiled contentedly. “A fund-raiser’s dream come true.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Jussa way it oughta be.
Just
the way it ought to be,” he corrected. “Wassa matter with that? What’s the matter with that? The Cardinal didn’t buy it?”

She shook her head. “He keeps going back to the goals Cardinal Mooney set when he started the ADF.”

She knew that Ted was aware of Mooney’s design for the Arch-diocesan Development Fund. She also knew that at just this moment, he couldn’t recall the philosophy.

“You remember, Ted: The idea was to explain the needs of the diocese. Services that were too complicated to be provided by individual parishes—things like a seminary, social services and so forth. Then, simply call on Detroit Catholics to rise to the challenge. No quotas, no demands.”

“And what’s it got’ em? Two million tops … right?”

“Uh-huh. But in this presentation today, McGraw proposed not only the setting of goals but publishing the results in the
Detroit Catholic.”

Ted smiled. “Show what each parish contributed? Uh … gave?”

“Uh-huh. Show what each parish gave, along with the preestablished quota.”

“Jus’ ’xactly. And the Cardinal didn’t buy it?”

“No. Said it didn’t square with the intent of the ADF. We have to depend on the free will offerings of informed Catholics. He was particularly negative about publishing the results of the drive. Said it would embarrass the poorer parishes and the ones who for one reason or another didn’t, or couldn’t, contribute very much. He said what use was the money if it came from coercion? The Church ought to be able to rely on the growing generosity of Christians.”

Ted’s lip curled. “Makes you wonder why they made him a … a … Cardinal, dunn’t it?”

“I’d better get dinner going.” Brenda wondered whether she had waited too long. It was Ted’s habit to be abstemious with hors d’oeuvres. That meant that the drinks hit him harder. She usually tried to tuck the beginning of dinner between drinks two and three.

“Whadja say it was?”

“Lamb.”

“Good. Tired of roast beef.”

With that, Ted listed to his right and fell asleep.

Brenda pursed her lips and shook her head. Too late. She went to the rear of his recliner and pushed the back down as far as it would go. He was nearly horizontal. Almost immediately he began to snore.

She returned to the couch, picked up the remote control and turned on the TV. There wasn’t much to watch. Mostly game shows and reruns of old sitcoms.

It didn’t matter. She just wanted some background noise.

This evening would be the “B” format. Ted would nap for an hour or two. When he woke he would have trouble establishing clear consciousness. But he’d come around.

They’d eat. Then probably they’d watch cable. Later they’d make love. Ted was very good at that. He was very active. And he was always careful to make sure she was completely satisfied.

Her mind turned toward the coming Wednesday evening—Aunt Oona’s birthday party.

Brenda’s presence at such occasions always turned out to be a mixed bag. She was very certainly expected to attend, but usually the party would end badly, with angry, hurtful words. There seemed no way out of it. Even the knowledge of how it likely would end could not excuse her absence.

She wondered whether her “uncle” the priest would be there. Probably.

They would all call him Father Bob. Even Brenda herself would be expected to follow suit. It was worse when the Koesler side of the family visited. Most of them were Lutheran. Then it became a battle of names: The Lutherans would go out of their way to call him “Bob,” while the Irish would extend themselves just as far in calling him “Father.”

What a family!

There were stirrings from the recliner. Apparently, Ted was not going to nap as long this evening.

Brenda busied herself in the kitchen, reheating the meat, potatoes, and vegetables, and tossing the salad.

Repeatedly, from one or another of the sisters, she’d heard how the Monahans and Koeslers had lived in adjoining flats on the corner of West Vernor and Ferdinand across from what had been the Stratford Movie Theater. They might just as well have been brother and sisters as cousins.

Yet, as close as they had been as children, now they treated a visit from their priest relative as if Moses were coming down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. And they treated him not as the kid with whom they’d grown up, but as some sort of cultic abstraction.

As far as she was concerned, she liked Bob Koesler—Father Bob. He had helped to get her the job with the archdiocese. That was more important than he realized.

The snoring had stopped. There were sounds of stretching movements. Ted was coming around.

Without turning, she knew he was standing in the kitchen doorway looking at her.

“You know something?” The slur in his pronunciation was gone. “I couldn’t live without you.”

“That’s nice.” She smiled. It was true: He couldn’t live without her.

C H A P T E R

5

T
RAVELING SOUTH
, a motorist would ordinarily take Interstate 75. However, this was weekday rush-hour traffic, so Father Koesler chose the alternate and ancient route of Jefferson Avenue. The traffic was not nearly as clogged as that on the freeway, the traffic lights were favorable, and it was the shortest distance between two points.

The two points were downtown Detroit, where Koesler lived, and Grosse Ile, where Eileen Monahan lived and where the birthday party for Oona Monahan was to be held.

Via Jefferson, he would drive through the heart of River Rouge, Ecorse, Lincoln Park, Wyandotte, Riverview, and Trenton. All old cities and all known by Detroit-area natives as “downriver.” All bordered on the Detroit River as it flowed toward Lake Erie, the next in the chain of the Great Lakes.

Grosse Ile, an island just east of Trenton, was connected to the mainland by two bridges. In addition to mostly beautiful homes with plenty of lawn, the island also boasted a naval air station and a Catholic parish, Sacred Heart, coveted by many priests as a haven for virtually early retirement as well as for the access it provided to a fine golf course.

Eileen had lived on Grosse Ile almost as long as Koesler’s memory stretched. Her home fronted on the river, across which lay Amherstburg, Canada. The house rested on the water’s edge. Its rectangular lot ran almost forty yards back to the road. Over the years, the property had been guarded by a series of dogs, with none of whom had Koesler been able to make friends.

On his first visit to Eileen’s home many years ago, Koesler had pulled up at the garage displaying the numbered address. A high metal fence delineated the property. Koesler had wondered how to announce his presence; there was no sign of a doorbell. He had rattled the fence; instantly, a small but loudmouthed spaniel mix had hurled himself at Koesler as if the fence weren’t there. The dog, Koesler had reasoned correctly, was the doorbell.

Eileen had appeared shortly after the dog announced Koesler’s arrival. She was distressed that the animal was making such a commotion. Assuring him that the dog did not bite, she opened the gate. Instantly, the animal dove for Koesler’s ankle. But before it could strike, Eileen scooped it up, whapped it across the snout, and admonished, “That’s Father Bob!”

The spaniel proved to be the first in a series of anticlerical dogs owned by Eileen. Once it was established that, for whatever reason, there would be enmity between Koesler and Eileen’s sentinels, she routinely locked them away when her cousin was expected.

Trenton. Almost there.

Koesler thought again on what awaited him. He considered this type of family reunion more a duty than a pleasure. But since he was conscientious in the fulfillment of duty, he nearly always attended the gatherings.

There would be six people. There were always six. None of whom had ever married.

He, of course, had promised a celibate, or unmarried, life. There was no other way the Church would have ordained him. Willingly he had taken on this obligation. He had no other desire in life but to be a priest.

The three sisters were another matter.

Oona, the eldest, whose sixty-fifth birthday they would be celebrating, was an often mean-tempered hypochondriac who frequently actually was ill. Koesler could remember once visiting her in the intensive care unit of a hospital. She complained that she was getting insufficient care. Since she was already receiving the maximum care of which the hospital was capable, he could do little for her.

Eileen, at sixty-one years, was next. As she aged, a bit more rapidly than the others, particularly in recent years, she reminded Koesler of one of the maiden ladies—it didn’t matter which—in
Arsenic and Old Lace.
Eileen walked in a rush of tiny steps. Her dresses overflowed with an abundance of lace. She managed to be occupied with “busy-work” most of the time. And she seemed dedicated to making peace. There was lots of peace to be made.

Maureen, at fifty-eight, was the baby. She was the nuts-and-bolts practical one. She had been employed most of her life at a series of diverse jobs. She’d been a waitress, a butcher, and a lifeguard. Those were the more colorful occupations in her résumé. In addition, she had been a secretary in a long list of business offices. And it was she who had adopted the two girls.

Each was now thirty-three years old. Both had been foundlings. Mary Lou had been first. And then, because Maureen sensed a loneliness in the youngster’s life, Brenda had been brought into the household.

The two girls had such similar backgrounds. Each had spent her earlier years in various foster homes. Each had found her way to St. Vincent’s Orphanage on Detroit’s east side. The home was owned, operated, and staffed by the Sisters of Charity, those wondrous women whose bonnets brought to mind giant gulls—the precursors of TV’s “Flying Nun.”

Mary Lou had hated everything about St. Vincent’s. Not that she was abused in any way. But she desperately wanted a home. So when Maureen took pity on her and brought her home on holidays and isolated weekends, Mary Lou tried to blend into the furniture, and wept bitterly each time she was returned—dragged back—to St. Vincent’s at the conclusion of each sojourn.

Maureen began bringing Brenda home with Mary Lou, hoping the companionship of the other girl would neutralize the trauma of return for Mary Lou.

It didn’t work out quite as hoped.

Brenda, for the most part, kept her feelings locked inside. She seemed so thoughtful—contemplative. She also seemed passive. On those occasions when they were returned to the orphanage and Mary Lou would go into her tantrum, Brenda would watch as if she were part of the audience at a play.

When the girls reached the fifth grade, all of their care and education to that point having been provided by St. Vincent’s, Maureen was able to take both of them permanently without legally adopting either.

As to the spinsterdom of the sisterhood: It is not all that uncommon for the Irish to postpone marriage. It often happens that this delay in marrying becomes set in stone. To a degree this was the case with the Monahans.

In addition, Oona, as the eldest, took on a heavy load in caring for her younger sisters, as well as supporting the family when their father died prematurely. As sometimes happens in such circumstances, Oona’s social life was all but nonexistent. She glided into her later years having experienced few interpersonal relationships, fewer thrills, and no romances.

Eileen was naturally shy. As a child she seemed foreordained to become a nun. During her formative years, she prepared for that vocation. But when, after high school graduation, it came time for her to enter the convent, a medical exam found her health to be extremely delicate. The doctor’s opinion was that Eileen was destined for a brief sojourn on earth and that she was utterly incapable of enduring the physical demands of religious life. The doctor’s prognosis for her life span eventually proved inaccurate. But for Eileen, the die had been cast. She had been brought up to be a nun, not a wife and mother. Her virginity appeared to her and her family to be a gift from God. And so she embraced it. This much should be said for Eileen: Her celibacy was a much more fulfilling and positive experience than Oona’s.

Of all the sisters, the one most likely to break the cycle of spinster-dom was Maureen. The baby of the family, guarded and guided by two doting older sisters, Maureen enjoyed a relatively carefree childhood. For an Irish Catholic girl attending parochial school, she dated extensively and often. Unabashed, she confided in her sisters, and, through her, the sisters lived a vicarious storybook adolescence. Except that for Oona and Eileen it was fiction.