Authors: Lynn Austin
“Patrick, look out!” I cried. Black Jack was hurrying up behind him to defend his friend. When Patrick whirled to face him, Black Jack halted.
“I don’t want to hit a priest, Father, but you gotta leave O’Brien alone.”
Patrick grabbed the front of his clerical collar and ripped it off his neck. “Go ahead and have at me, man!” He threw the collar onto the ground. “I could kill both of you for involving Emma in your schemes!” He rushed at Black Jack, swinging another of his deadly punches. They locked in combat. I saw a blur of bloody faces and fists as they pummelled each other, and heard the sickening thud of blows and grunts. Patrick was getting the worst of it, but his anger wouldn’t let him quit.
“Stop it! Both of you, stop it!” I screamed.
“Emma, stay back!” O’Brien shouted from where he lay on the ground. But I couldn’t stand to watch Patrick’s beloved face get beaten to pulp. I rushed forward to stop the carnage. O’Brien scrambled to his feet to restrain Black Jack.
“You’ve got to get out of here, O’Brien!” I shouted when we’d managed to separate them. “Just go! . . . Get out of here!” They dodged across the street and hopped aboard a streetcar as it pulled to the curb. A moment later it drove away.
Patrick groaned and sank down on the bench again. Blood streamed from his nose and from a cut above his eye. I pulled my scarf out of my pocket and began mopping his face.
“Careful!” he gasped when I touched his nose. “I think he broke it.” I shoved the cloth into his hand so he could wipe it himself.
“Why did you pick a fight with Black Jack? He was a champion prizefighter in Ireland. Are you out of your mind?”
“Are you out of
yours
, Emma? What are you doing mixed up with bootleggers?”
I drew a shaky breath and let it out. “I needed help. I can’t work anymore . . . and my baby will be born in a few weeks.”
Patrick slowly lowered the cloth from where he’d been pressing it against his cut eye. “Is the baby mine?” he whispered.
I hesitated. I was about to lie, but Patrick read my heart. “Oh, God, forgive me!” he cried. He covered his face.
“Karl knew the baby wasn’t his,” I said quietly. “He tried to make me have an abortion. I left him to protect our child.”
I watched a bright bead of blood well up in the cut above his eye, then run between his fingers. A few minutes later, he scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and lowered them again. “We’ll be married, of course, as soon as your divorce is official. You don’t need to resort to bootlegging, Emma. I’ll support you and our child.”
I waited for him to pull me into his arms, waited for his comforting embrace. It never came. He slumped forward with his arms on his thighs, his head lowered, his hands dangling between his knees. Blood dripped onto the pavement like tears.
“No, Patrick.”
He lifted his head. “What?”
“I won’t marry you. I already messed up my own life. I won’t mess up yours.”
“Emma, it takes two people to make a baby! I’m as guilty as you are! We both messed up, and now I need to take responsibility for what I’ve done.”
“I won’t marry you, Patrick.”
“Emma, don’t be absurd! Of course we’ll be married. I’ve fathered a child!”
“You haven’t said that you love me or that you can’t live without me. You can barely look at me. Don’t give up the priesthood for me, Patrick, because I won’t change my mind. I won’t marry you!”
I saw another streetcar coming on our side of the street and hurried toward my apartment. I knew that a priest couldn’t be seen chasing a pregnant woman, especially a priest with a bloodied face and torn collar. I hurried inside and locked the door, grateful that Patrick didn’t follow me.
THIRTY-TWO
I couldn’t sleep that night. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw images of Patrick fighting with Black Jack, and my eyes flew open again. From time to time, the muscles of my womb tightened until my abdomen was as hard as a rock, and I was terrified that I was starting early labor. Meanwhile, the baby thrashed and churned as restlessly as I did.
As the sun rose, I was still staring at the stains and cracks on the ceiling and wondering where I could go. I couldn’t stay here, but without O’Brien’s help, I would never be able to find another apartment. I didn’t know what to do. I certainly couldn’t go home to Bremenville. Part of me wanted to lie on the bed until I died, but a wiser part knew I had to live for my baby’s sake.
When I heard the sound of footsteps descending my stairwell and a soft rapping on the door, I was too weary to rise and look out the window.
“Who is it?” I called, not moving.
“It’s me.”
I pulled myself to my feet and opened the door to let Patrick in. His eye was purplish-black, and his swollen, bruised face looked even worse than it had last night. Someone had attempted to doctor the worst of his cuts with iodine and taped the gash above his eye. It should have had stitches. He closed the door and leaned against it. He wasn’t wearing his black clerical suit and collar.
“I haven’t stopped loving you for one second of my life, Emma. I’ll never stop. I’m sorry I worded it so poorly last night. Please, I want to marry you and raise our child together.”
I turned and put a pot of water on the hot plate to make tea, fighting the urge to run into his arms.
“Emma, why didn’t you come to me right away?”
I opened the door to the potbellied stove and dumped in a shovelful of coal before answering. “I did. I came to your church, thinking you had probably quit. I was going to ask the new priest where you’d gone. But then I saw
you serving communion. I could tell that you had asked God for forgiveness. And that He had accepted you back.”
Patrick sighed. “You’re right, I did quit. The bishop wouldn’t accept my resignation. He made me read the story of how David sinned with Bathsheba, and how he’d found God’s forgiveness. He told me to pray David’s prayer of repentance.” Patrick’s voice trembled as he softly recited the words. “‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. . . . Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight. . . . Create in me a clean heart, Ο God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. . . . Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.’ The bishop said that experiencing repentance and forgiveness would make me a better priest. So I renewed my vows.”
“Has it, Patrick? Has it made you a better priest?”
“I don’t know. I was so ashamed of what I did at first that even after I confessed, it seemed like no amount of penance could ever ease my guilt. I knew Christ offered forgiveness, but I couldn’t feel it. Then one day I read the words, ‘while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’—and I knew it was true. That was the whole point of His sacrifice, Emma. I couldn’t be sinless on my own, I couldn’t do it—so He became sin for me.” Patrick shook his head at the wonder of it.
“Sometimes I sit in the confessional now and weep with people, because I know I’m just as guilty, just as capable of sin as they are. I look up at the crucifix and see His love for me in spite of what I’ve done, in spite of the kind of man I am, and it brings me to my knees. I want to fall on my face every time I stand before His cross. So in the end, I stayed in the priesthood out of gratitude. Offering my life to Him seemed like the very least I could do. Every sermon I preach is on grace—and people listen, Emma. The grace of God changes their lives, just as it changed mine.”
Tears ran down my face as I gazed at the beautiful golden-haired man that I loved. But Patrick didn’t belong to me. He belonged to God and to his parish.
“You aren’t free to marry me, Patrick. You’re married to God.”
“No, Emma. Listen to me. . . .”
“How will people learn about God’s grace if you don’t tell them? I won’t let you break your vows a second time. Someday you would hate me for taking you away from God’s work.”
“It’s too late. I talked to my mother last night, and she agreed to let me live with her after I move out of the rectory. I made an appointment to talk with the bishop later today. I’ll find a job—”
“I won’t do it. Even if you quit the priesthood, I won’t marry you. Help me find a place to live. That’s all I need from you.”
“No, it isn’t right. You’re my responsibility.” He moved toward me, his arms outstretched to enfold me. I held up my hands to keep him back.
“Don’t, Patrick. Don’t! I won’t change my mind.” His arms fell to his sides, but his eyes pleaded silently with me. I turned away. “Please go. And please don’t ask me to marry you again.”
Patrick slammed out of the apartment and ran up the steps to the street.
Late that afternoon he returned. He was wearing his clerical suit and collar once again. I was grateful for the distance it created between us.
“I found you a place to live,” he said as he stood in the doorway. “I have a borrowed car outside, if you’d like to come and see the apartment.”
“I really don’t care what it looks like,” I said. “It can’t be worse than this place.”
“I know, but the landladies want to meet you first.”
“That will be the end of it,” I said, resting my hand on my stomach.
“They’ll take one look at me and turn me down. I’ve been through this before.”
“Let’s give it a try anyway, shall we?” He removed my coat from the nail near the door and held it for me while I put it on.
We drove the few blocks to the Mulligan sisters’ house on King Street and parked in front of the ramshackle, three-story building. I made no move to get out of the car. “I don’t think this is such a good idea, Patrick. It’s too close to Booty’s store, too close to . . .”
“To me?”
“I think it will be much too difficult. For both of us.”
He turned in his seat to face me. “Emma, I have no money. I took a vow of poverty when I became a priest. Unless I quit the priesthood and get a job, I have no means to support you and the baby. And whether you like it or not, it’s my responsibility to do that. If you live nearby, I can make sure you’re taken care of here in the community. These are good people. They help each other out, especially if their parish priest asks them for a favor. I promised the bishop that once I found you a place to live I would have no further contact with you—and I won’t. Will you at least try it this way, Emma?”
I felt the muscles of my womb contract again, in preparation for labor in a few short weeks. I couldn’t afford to argue with him. “All right.” I opened the car door and walked up the steps to meet the Mulligan sisters for the first time. Aileen Mulligan opened her apartment door before Patrick had a chance to knock.
“Is this the boarder you told me about, Father?”
“Mrs. Bauer, I’d like to you meet Aileen Mulligan and her sister, Kate—”
“You didn’t tell me she was expecting!” Aileen said before anyone could reply.
“Oh? Didn’t I?” Patrick said with a bemused grin. “It must have slipped my mind.”
“We don’t want any children living here, Father. They run up and down the stairs and—”
“Aye, they do. But you have my solemn promise that Mrs. Bauer’s child will not be doing any running for a while . . . and stairs will be entirely out of the question for at least a year or two.”
“What kind of a woman is she, with no husband?” It was humiliating to be talked about as if I wasn’t standing right there. Patrick was doing his level best to be charming, but I could tell by the bright spots of color on his cheeks that he was battling his temper.
“She needs a place to live, Aileen. Mrs. Bauer has left her husband for reasons I’m not at liberty to discuss, but they concern the safety of her child. She will pay half of the rent each month, and the child’s father has agreed to pay the other half through me.”
“She can’t be a very good Catholic if she’s getting divorced.”
“She isn’t Catholic. But she was raised in the church, if that makes you feel any better. In fact, her father is a minister of the Protestant faith.”
“Kate and I will not have sinners living under our roof,” she said sternly.
Patrick heaved an enormous sigh. “Well, then, Miss Aileen, it will be a terrible shame having this grand big house sitting empty, won’t it?”
“What do you mean, ‘empty’?”
“The Scriptures tell us that ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’If a person has to be sinless to live here, then only our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be renting a room.”
Aileen made a face. “You know what I mean, Father. We’ll not have anyone who is immoral living under our roof.”
Patrick removed his prayer book from his pocket and laid his hand on it.
His eyes were very bright. “You have my word of honor as a priest that Mrs. Bauer is no more immoral than I am.”
“That’s a relief to know, Father.” She gave a grudging wave toward the steps. “She can go on upstairs, then, and have a look at the place.”
Three weeks after I moved in I sent Crazy Clancy, my elderly next-door neighbor, for the doctor. The long hours of labor that followed were the loneliest hours of my life. I cried for Mama and Papa; for my sisters Sophie, Eva, and Vera; and I silently cried for Patrick. Old Dr. Bailey patted my hand from time to time and made soothing noises, telling me I was making progress. But I struggled on, alone.
Then, after a final burst of pain, I held my baby in my arms for the first time, and I knew I would never be alone again. I saw Patrick in the curl of her lip, the cleft of her chin, and in the downy tuft of golden hair on her head. I couldn’t look at her without weeping.
I awoke the next morning to find Patrick standing over me. His eyes shone with tears as he gazed down at our daughter, asleep in my arms. “Emma, you have to marry me. Please. I can’t walk away from you and from our child. She’s so tiny . . . so helpless. . . .”
“You’ve seen the way people like Sheila Higgins and the Mulligan sisters treat me. You’ve seen the stigma I bear every day of my life because my husband is divorcing me. Imagine how your daughter will be ridiculed and ostracized—the illegitimate child of a fallen priest. If you love her, Patrick, you won’t do this to her. You won’t damage her life. As far as she and the rest of the world are concerned, Karl Bauer is her father.”