Emma wandered through her rooms as if searching for something. She hadn’t felt so alone since the day she had given birth to Gracie. Did Mama and Papa feel this same empty, aching loss when they were separated from the daughter they loved? Did God?
The enormity of Emma’s sin stung her anew. She remembered telling Papa that she wasn’t sorry for what she and Patrick had done, but every time she thought of Gracie’s cold, stricken face she was more ashamed of her sin than she’d ever been before. For the first time, she admitted that if she could go back in time and erase what happened on Squaw Island that day, she would gladly do it. Better never to have given birth to Grace than to be alienated from her like this.
Emma gazed around at her rooms, as if surprised to find herself here in this new place. It was the move that had started her down this long road to the truth. Moving had raised questions about the past and caused her to tell Louise’s story—and her own. As in the flood of her childhood, it wasn’t until she had picked through the rubble of destroyed homes and lives that she fully realized the impact of the storm of passion that had swept her and Patrick away. And only in examining her own life—and Gracie’s and Suzanne’s lives—had Emma finally seen the terrible aftermath of her sin.
She closed her bedroom door and sat on the edge of her bed. She took Patrick’s prayer book from the drawer of her nightstand. God punished the children for the sin of the mothers to the third and fourth generation, Papa had said. But he’d also said that God would forgive her if she repented. Patrick had said the same thing—God not only forgave sin but brought redemption. Emma opened the prayer book to the place Patrick had marked for her thirty years ago and read the words aloud:
“‘Have mercy upon me, Ο God, according to thy lovingkindness:
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. . . .’”
THIRTY-FOUR
* * *
Suzanne stood on her mother’s porch the next day and pressed the doorbell a second time. Grace’s car was in the driveway, so she had to be home. Where else would she be in the middle of the afternoon? Why didn’t she answer the door?
Sue rifled through her key ring, trying three of them in the lock before the door finally opened. “Mom . . .?” she called from the foyer. “Mom, are you home?”
“Up here, Sue.”
She padded up the carpeted stairs and into her mother’s bedroom. Grace was lying on the bed with a wet cloth over her eyes. “What’s wrong, Mom?”
“I’m battling a migraine.”
“Can I get you something for it? Do you want me to call Daddy?”
“I already took a pill. It’s starting to work, but I still don’t feel like facing the world just yet.”
Suzanne sank into the chair beside the bed. “It’s because of what you found out about your father yesterday, isn’t it.” Grace didn’t reply. “Talk to me, Mom. I feel so bad for forcing you to dig up the past when you didn’t want to. I’m so sorry. . . .”
“It’s not your fault.” Grace removed the cloth and slowly sat up, leaning against the mound of pillows at the headboard. “It’s just that Father O’Duggan was such a godly man. I respected him so much for that . . . and I loved him for it. Now I feel as though his memory has been tarnished.”
“He was also human,” Suzanne said softly. “He made a mistake. You have to forgive him for being human.”
Even as she spoke them, the words seemed to stick in Suzanne’s mouth. She needed to do the same with Jeff. He was human too. He had yielded to the natural human desire to accept a job for the money, prestige, and power it offered. And although he was wrong to agree to move without discussing it with her, she would be just as guilty of wrongdoing if she refused to forgive him. Unforgiveness was causing her mother’s illness—and if Suzanne didn’t make peace with Jeff before he moved to Chicago, it would cause an even larger mess in her life, in the girls’ lives. She had to forgive him for being human. She and Jeff should at least part as friends.
“I wish I had never learned the truth,” Grace murmured. Suzanne turned her attention back to her mother. She looked pale against the pillows, her eyes swollen. “I don’t know if I can forgive them or not.”
“Mom, it’s obvious from what I know about Father O’Duggan that God forgave him for his sin—otherwise, how could he have been used by God all those years?”
“I don’t care about his parish, and I don’t care about all the good he did for other people,” Grace said angrily. “I wanted a father so badly when I was growing up! Why didn’t he tell me he was my father and let me know him as one?”
“It seems to me from all the stories you told me that that’s exactly what Father O’Duggan was to you. That was the role he played in your life. He taught you right from wrong, he guided you and helped you make decisions, he kept you from making mistakes. . . . He led you to faith in God too. Isn’t that what you said? You may not have known he was your father, but that’s the role he played in your life. A lesser man would have wanted nothing to do with you for reminding him every day of his sin.”
“I’m so angry with my mother for not telling me!”
“Mom, I think she made a very difficult but very wise decision. How could you have faced Father O’Duggan every day if you’d known the truth? You wouldn’t have accepted a word he said to you because all you would have seen is that he cared more about being a priest than being your father. And that wasn’t true. You wouldn’t have believed that Grandma refused to marry him. I think you would have been even angrier with both of them if you’d known the truth.” She pulled a tissue from the box on the nightstand and handed it to Grace.
“I think Grandma did the most unselfish thing she could possibly do—for you and for Father O’Duggan,” Suzanne continued. “Imagine how hard it must have been for her to be so close to the man she loved, yet never be able to hold him or even talk to him beyond simple pleasantries. Grandma could have taken the support money he gave her and lived somewhere else, started all over again, and made a new life for herself, but she gave you and your father the gift of each other, no matter how painful it must have been for her. She gave Father O’Duggan back to God, and she gave you to your father, in the only way she could under the circumstances.”
Against her will, Suzanne found herself thinking about her own daughters and their father. “Mom, if nothing else good comes out of all this, I want you to know that I finally understand what you’ve been trying to tell me about Amy and Melissa needing a father. I don’t ever want to hurt them like you were hurt. Will you pray that I’ll find a solution like Grandma did?”
“I’ve been praying for that, Sue. And yes, I’ll continue to pray.” Grace wiped her eyes and blew her nose, then took Suzanne’s hands in hers. “Thanks for coming and helping me put things in perspective. If you can stand another trip into the past, I’d like to tell you one more story about Father O’Duggan that I don’t think I’ve ever shared with you. . . .”
* * *
1946
The summer after I graduated from nursing school I was all in a tizzy, planning my wedding. I had never imagined that I’d have such an elaborate affair, but Stephen’s parents had dozens of high-society friends that had to be entertained, and they wanted a big to-do with an expensive reception. They paid for everything, of course, and even talked me into getting married in Stepheh’s home church. My roommate from school had agreed to be my maid of honor, but I had no one to walk down the aisle with me. It was such a long, beautiful aisle too. I wanted my mother to give me away, but she refused.
“It just isn’t done, Grace,” she said. “That’s a man’s role. It’s going to be hard enough for me to spend the day with all those wealthy, well-educated people. But I’d only be drawing attention to the fact that I’m divorced if I walked down the aisle with you. Maybe if it was a small, quiet we
dding . . . but you’re planning a three-ring circus.” I was hurt, but for once in her life my mother wanted to do the conventional thing, so I was also relieved. “Isn’t there someone else you could ask?” she said.
“If I could have my wish . . . please don’t laugh . . . but I would like it to be Father O’Duggan.” My mother turned away abruptly. She hadn’t laughed at the idea, but one minute she was standing beside the kitchen table where I sat with all my wedding lists spread out, and the next minute she was banging pots on the stove.
“See? I knew you wouldn’t understand. But Father O’Duggan is the closest thing I had to a real father when I was growing up.”
“I do understand,” she said with her back to me. “And I think it’s a lovely idea. I think you should ask him.” She surprised me.
“Could he do it, legally? I mean, would the Catholic church allow him to go into a Protestant church and be part of the ceremony?”
“I don’t know. Ask him. The worst he can do is say no, and then you’ll be back where you are now. Father O’Duggan will be honored that you asked though, and if he can’t do it, he’ll have the grace to refuse without hurting your feeling.”
I loved the man, but it took me three days to work up the nerve to ask him. I remembered how he had refused to let me call him Daddy years earlier, and asking him to give me away at my wedding seemed like the same thing. I hadn’t talked to him in several months because I’d been away at school. He was easy to find, though. I waited until he came out of St. Michael’s after the evening mass, and I walked with him back to the rectory.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “Though I must warn you things are in a bit of a mess at the moment.”
The hallway and two rooms off the kitchen were stripped to the joists and cluttered with lumber and construction equipment. We stepped over two-by-fours and rolls of electrical wiring.
“What on earth are you building over here?” I asked.
“I’m having these two back rooms converted into a small apartment for myself. The rest of the rectory is going to be a place where people can come for refuge.”
“What a wonderful idea.”
Father O’Duggan’s housekeeper made us a pot of tea, and wē sat at his kitchen table, sipping it.
“You’ve become a lovely woman, Grace. And you’re a nurse now, so I hear?”
“Yes, I graduated this spring as an RN.”
“I’m so proud of you.” His smile filled his eyes.
“It must have been all those books you paid me to read.”
He laughed and turned his pants pockets inside-out to show me they were empty. “Aye, Gracie! You cleaned me out with all your reading!”
“Did you know that I’m getting married this August? His name is Stephen Bradford and he’s a doctor. We’ll be living in Philadelphia until he finishes his residency.”
He took my hand in both of his. His eyes searched mine. “Tell me about Stephen . . . is he a good man? Does he treat you with respect? Does he love God?”
“He’s very good to me, Father. And yes, he loves God as much as I do.”
“Good. Do you and he want the same things in life? Are they things worth working for?”
“He feels that practicing medicine is his way of serving God.”
“Do you love him, Gracie? Not the fact that he’s a doctor. Are you in love with who he is, not what he is? Would you love him even if he were poor?”
I thought about how Stephen and I had met, and my face must have glowed. “I loved him long before I knew that his parents were wealthy.”
“Does he love you? Not just your outward beauty, but does he know the woman inside? Does he love her and cherish her?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I know that he does.”
“Then may our Lord and Savior bless your marriage . . . and your new life together.” He squeezed my hand.
“Father O’Duggan . . .?”
“Yes, child?”
“You’ve been like a father to me all my life and . . . and I’ve come to ask if you would be willing . . . if you would be able . . . to walk down the aisle with me at my wedding.”
His eyes brimmed with tears until they overflowed. He didn’t wipe them but rose to his feet and pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly.
“Aye, Gracie. Aye. I would be honored.”
* * *
1980
“He walked me down the aisle, Sue. He was my father . . . and I never even knew it.”
“He loved you. Remember Grandma’s words?”
.“My wedding day was the last time I ever saw him. We lived in Philadelphia during Stephen’s last year of residency—the year Father O’Duggan died. I was eight months pregnant with Bobby, and Stephen didn’t want me to travel to the funeral. I wish I had known that he was my father. I wish I had . . .”
“Mom, can we look at your wedding pictures? It’s been ages since I’ve seen them.”
They went downstairs, and Grace retrieved the album from the shelf in the family room. They sat on the sofa and slowly paged through the photos. There were the usual pictures of the bride and bridesmaids preparing for the wedding, and a shot of all the attendants lined up at the altar rail beside Stephen and the minister. But Suzanne stopped when she came to a picture of Grace walking down the aisle with her father, her hand tucked securely beneath his arm. Father O’Duggan wore his black clerical suit and collar.
“Mom, look,” Suzanne said in a whisper. “Look at the pride in his eyes. His love for you is written all over his face.”
“If only I could have told him what he meant to me . . . how much I loved him.”
“But you did tell him, Mom. Just look at this picture.”
Grace was still sitting in her family room, paging through the photograph album when she heard someone come in through the back door. She thought it was Suzanne, returning for something she had forgotten, but a moment later Stephen walked into the room.
“What are you doing home?” she asked in surprise.
“I came to see how you’re feeling. How’s the migraine?” He sat on the sofa beside her and kissed her forehead. “There, does that make it all better?”
“Oh, much better. Don’t you have a golf game? Isn’t this your afternoon off?”
“I cancelled it.”
“You didn’t have to do that, I’ll be fine. Suzanne was just here. She left not even half an hour ago.”
“I was worried about you, Grace. I could tell you’d had a rough time sleeping last night. And then you weren’t feeling well when I left this morning. . . .”
Grace put her hand to his face. “Stephen, you’ve always been so sweet to me when I’m sick, starting way back when I had scarlet fever.”
He laughed and kissed her palm. “At least migraines aren’t contagious. What’s with the wedding album? It’s not our anniversary, is it?”
“No, that’s in August.”
“Phew! I was afraid I’d forgotten!” He slumped against the sofa cushions in mock relief and loosened his tie.
“You’ve never once forgotten, in all these years. Suzanne and I were looking at the album because she has been on this insane quest to find out more about my father. And yesterday . . . well, I haven’t been able to talk about what we learned yesterday. I’ve been in shock and denial. I’m glad you came home because I’m finally ready to talk about it. But you and I need to discuss something else first. Something very important.”
“This sounds serious,” he said, sitting up straighter.
“It is. Stephen, I know you don’t want me to work, but I would like to accept the directorship of the crisis pregnancy center.”
Grace paused, waiting for him to rant and rave. Stephen looked very displeased, but all he said was, “Go on.”
“My mother sacrificed her own happiness for my father and me. My grandparents made enormous sacrifices for each other. It’s what people who love each other are supposed to do. If they don’t . . . well, that’s why Suzanne and Jeff are on the
verge of divorce. Each one is living only for himself, and neither one is willing to budge. Love requires us to give willingly for each other. It’s what we vowed to do at our wedding—and we’ve kept those vows, you and I. You’ve worked long, hard hours to give the children and me a home and to give them an education. I sacrificed nursing to stay home and take care of you and the children. But you no longer need me to make that sacrifice. We have maid service, we eat out more than we eat at home . . .”
“Why do you need a job, Grace?” he said, frowning. “Don’t I give you all the money you want?” The expression on Stephen’s face told Grace that he was more hurt than angry.
“This isn’t about money. In fact, I plan to donate my salary to the center, so, in effect, I’ll still be a volunteer. I’m asking you to sacrifice your pride, your long-held ideas of women’s roles, whatever else it takes—and let me do this. Remember the song that made you decide to go into medicine? ‘Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.’ I want to consecrate my life too. You don’t need me to run your house, Stephen, but God needs me to run this center. I think He’s calling me to do it, just as He once called you to be a doctor. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The angry, troubled look on Stephen’s face had softened to one of bewilderment. “I’m trying to understand, but I never knew you felt this way about working.”
“I didn’t—until yesterday. Now I think it’s finally time for me to use the gifts and the training God gave me. From all that I’ve learned about my father, the right-to-life movement and this crisis pregnancy center are two causes that would be very close to his heart.”
“What? Your father?”
“Yes, he would have encouraged me to take this job. In fact, the board of trustees has been trying to come up with a name for the center, waiting for some rich benefactor to come along to name it after. When I donate my salary I’ll have it named after my father.”