“What do you intend to do about my pregnancy? What do you intend to do about our child?”
The term “our child” grabbed his attention as nothing before had. He began to lose sight of Jane. All he could think of was that he didn’t need this. Not now. He had not yet recovered from the tragic end to his relationship with Charlie Hogan and the loss of a vocation that meant the world to him. He was still reeling from those severe traumas and here was this young woman demanding that he take virtually lifelong responsibility for “our” child.
In his panic he was not conscious that the muscles in his throat were constricting. In a very short time, he would experience great difficulty in breathing.
“What about our child?” Jane sensed she had scored heavily and wanted to press home her advantage.
As if by miracle, the answer came. “Adoption! You can adopt it out!”
“Adoption! Give my baby—our child away to some stranger! Over my dead body!”
“Jane, be reasonable. There are lots of reputable agencies. Catholic Charities can do it. And you’d know it would have good Catholic parents who would give it a home. So much more than we could give it.”
“Not if we get married.”
“What?”
“If we got married, we could give our child everything anybody else could give. More, really, because we would have our baby. It’s the only honorable thing to do.”
“Jane!” Could it have suddenly gotten much warmer? He was perspiring profusely. “Jane! I just got kicked . . . I just lost . . . I have no . . . I can’t . . .” He felt as if he were about to faint although he had never before done that. He couldn’t faint here in the middle of a public park! He had a weird vision of caretakers digging a hole beside his inert body, rolling him into the hole, and covering it over. He had to get out of here, and fast!
Not caring any longer what Jane might think of all this, Groendal rose and ran. It was not a graceful exit. He moved the way a desperate man would escape if, say, because he’d been tortured he couldn’t run up to his full, normal capability. He more staggered than ran up Vernor. He was oblivious to stares. He assumed he’d left Jane standing in the park with her damned baby. But he could focus on only one thing: He must find sanctuary before he died. It didn’t matter who offered sanctuary, the church or his home.
It was only because home lay between him and the church that he turned in when he got to his house. By the time he reached the front hallway, his clothing was sweat-drenched. He’d torn open his shirt trying to make it easier to breathe.
Mary Groendal had been waiting impatiently for her son’s return. She had long since concluded that he was spending entirely too much time with that woman this afternoon. The conviction was growing, too, that her son’s loss of priestly vocation was the fault of that woman. Long before Ridley lurched through the front door, she had decided to have it out with him.
However, when she saw his pallor, his sweat-covered face and drenched clothing, she gasped. Shocked, she could think of nothing to say.
Ridley felt as an elephant might upon finding the burial ground. It was now safe to collapse. So he did.
When he came to, he had the impression he had awakened many times since losing consciousness in the front hallway. But he couldn’t remember things clearly. He couldn’t remember anything clearly. Oddly, he felt rather comfortable without memory. As if there was nothing in his past worth remembering.
He was too tired to move anything but his eyes. He was in some sort of institution. He knew he’d reached that conclusion before, but he couldn’t recall how or why.
It was a long, narrow room with an impossibly high ceiling. The walls were an indeterminate mixture of blue and green. Sickening. Except for the ceiling, which was too high, it could have been a room in the seminary’s St. Thomas Hall. But the color was not right. And of course there was no reason why it should be St. Thomas Hall.
The overhead light was lit. He wondered if they left the light on all the time. He wondered if it was day or night. He didn’t care. He was lost in a blessed void of neutrality. He couldn’t remember the past and he didn’t care about the future.
He became conscious of sounds somewhere in the corridor. Institutional sounds. People—more than a few—talking. Quietly, mostly. Somebody giving orders: Somebody must stay in his or her room till later. Crockery rattling.
Then the sound of a loudspeaker. He could hear that clearly. “Dr. Bartlett . . . Dr. Bartlett, please pick up line two.”
No doubt about it, he was in some sort of hospital. He tried for a moment, but couldn’t remember which one. Gloriously, it didn’t matter.
14
It was not at all typical of Bob Koesler. But he wanted very much to see Ridley Groendal and that would require extreme measures.
When Koesler began summer vacation, he learned, first, that Groendal was in St. Joseph’s Retreat, and second, that only members of his immediate family were permitted to visit him. How was a seminarian, fresh from college graduation, to pierce that defense?
The solution seemed obvious to Koesler. There was one exception to every rule in most institutions—the friendly clergyman. Spouses and relatives might be denied access to their loved one, but—particularly in a Catholic hospital—not the priest. He could go virtually unchallenged through almost any hospital at any time. The presumption was that a clergyman was always on business and that his business was “higher” than mere regulations.
In addition, the priest was identified by his uniform. Nothing more was needed. He did not need any ID or hospital garb. À black suit and Roman collar with clerical vest was all that was required. And Bob Koesler had that. Now that he was about to enter the theologate seminary, he was expected to add the clerical vest and collar to his wardrobe, and he had.
All he needed was an extraordinary measure of self-confidence, perhaps the Yiddish chutzpah. He could dress exactly like a priest out on professional calls. He looked like a priest—albeit a very young priest. Now he had to pass himself off as one. He had to tough it out. Brazenly enter through the front door as if he owned the place, walk by hospital staff in the corridors with no more than a curt nod, and march into Ridley’s room as if he’d been summoned to confer a sacrament or two.
Carrying off this masquerade was precisely where Koesler anticipated the most trouble. It was not in his nature to dare anyone to call his bluff. Crossing the border between Detroit and Windsor, he never tried to smuggle anything either way. He was certain his guilty countenance would betray him.
But now he was intent on seeing his former classmate and fellow parishioner. And desperately intent people are led to desperate deeds.
Three days before, he had made his first foray into the impressive brick structure on the northeast corner of Michigan Avenue and West Outer Drive. Later it would be replaced by a car dealership. But now it was a sanitorium mostly for disturbed Catholics. Run by the Sisters of Charity—who, at that time, wore the imposing winged bonnets—St. Joseph’s Retreat housed every infirmity from alcoholism to schizophrenia.
Koesler’s initial adventure had been so successful that he had been emboldened to try it again. So here he was in his second attempt. He was under no delusion that this experience would qualify him to fool a border guard. Conning nuns by wearing priestly regalia was one thing; deceiving a customs agent trained to detect frauds and conditioned to expect them was quite another.
As it turned out, the second time was easier than the first. Then, some of the staff had looked at him a bit dubiously. Undoubtedly because they’d never seen him before and because he was so young—and looked it. Though his was not an impossibly youthful appearance; when he was ordained a priest four years hence, he would not look noticeably older.