“O’Malley? That old coot? For God’s sake, Catharine, the man’s practically blind and deaf. I know Kelly has a doctor she likes. We’ll make you an appointment with her. What’s important is that we take care of this.”
Catharine’s voice slams down. “No, Louis. I will take care of this. I don’t want to discuss it. Tell Kelly what you must, but whatever happens from here on in will be my decision. Now, believe it or not, I have a headache. I’d like to ride in silence.”
Her face as expressionless as a slab of Sheetrock, Catharine refuses to say another word.
MY MOTHER-IN-LAW scared the hell out of me the first time I met her. I learned that day that there was no influencing her, and little point in arguing with her.
Kelly had invited me to her parents’ house for a Sunday lunch, but it seemed more like she had invited me into a train station. Young adults scattered with a few teenagers seemed to be everywhere at once. Pat and Johnny clapped me on the back and looked me up and down. Meggy came into the living room with a short skirt on, and her father sent her back to her room to change. Ryan and Theresa, the shy ones, each shook my hand and offered me a soda or lemonade. Kelly was shy in those days, too, though less retiring. She stayed close to my side while she made introductions; I could feel how physically anxious she was for them to like me. We were having an early lunch so Patrick could head out to the golf course. Everyone except me had just come from Mass.
“Louis, did you attend church this morning?” Kelly’s mother asked. She was a small woman, amazingly trim for having given birth to so many children. I looked at her with some measure of awe. My own mother had given birth only once. She was always talking about how painful that experience had been and what havoc it had wreaked on her body. “Look what you did,” she would say, and point to her plump stomach.
Everyone at the table turned polite faces toward me. This was clearly an important question. “I went to five o’clock Mass last night,” I said.
“Do you go to Mass every week?”
“Yes, ma’am. With my parents.”
Catharine had nodded, and I had been relieved. I planned to ask Kelly to marry me, and I knew that as a suitor I did not have Patrick McLaughlin’s approval. Kelly had warned me that he’d written me off because I didn’t come from money and though I did have Irish in me, I wasn’t one hundred percent. Clearly, I couldn’t make up for these lacks, but I was determined to succeed. I’d met Kelly at Bloomingdale’s, where she was working at the time, and since then I hadn’t been able to think of anything but her. She was so sweet, she laughed at all my jokes, and I suddenly wanted nothing more in life than to take the sadness out of her blue eyes. It seemed clear that she was meant to be my wife. So I thought that if my cause could get some support from Kelly’s mother, perhaps she could reason with her husband and I would have a chance. If I only had the opportunity, I was confident I could run with it.
Kelly held my hand under the table during the meal, and that helped me survive the strange, uncomfortable experience. Since Patrick was in charge of leading the conversation from the head of the table, and my presence had rendered him silent above his plate of sliced turkey and his glass of scotch, everyone had to stay quiet. He was a very stubborn man, and even though I believe he grew to like me, it would be nearly a year before he spoke directly to me.
However, there was a wordless current that traveled above and below the table. I was aware of Kelly’s legs swinging, kicking at Johnny, who was on her right. There was a shuffling of feet over by Meggy, too, and at one point somebody took a shot that brushed the hem of my pants. Meggy was making eyes at me, her aim more to annoy Kelly than to flirt with me, as far as I could tell. I didn’t know who to look at, or whether it was more appropriate to smile or appear expressionless. I felt like I had walked in on a high-level