That year Spy Wednesday was cold and rainy, like many nights in late March: the streets puddled, the storm grates loud with runoff. If the air were five degrees colder, Greater Boston would have been buried in snow. Art’s winter cold had blossomed into bronchitis, and a deep cough had lingered. An evening in bed would have done him good. Instead he dosed up with cough syrup and wound a muffler around his throat.
That night’s meeting was held in the church basement, the parish hall already in use by a local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous. Art had offered them the building while the Unitarian hall was under renovation—sparking complaints from the council, who groused that the hall was for parishioners’ use only. Art had refrained from speculating how many AA members likely belonged to Sacred Heart.
He was greeted outside by Flip Finn, who stood beneath an awning at the back door. His real name was Philip, but in the parish he was known by the childhood nickname. For Art it evoked visions of trained seals, an impression reinforced by Flip’s short limbs and narrow shoulders and smooth bald head.
“Evening, Father. They’re all here except Marilyn.” He nodded toward the church basement. “Smells a little damp, if you ask me. You might want to get the dehumidifier running. You could grow mushrooms down there.” A former engineer for the MBTA transit line, he kept busy in retirement by delivering a constant stream of technical advice to those in need, women and priests especially. Like many competent men, Flip was genuinely alarmed by such people, with their minimal understanding of the physical world and, when its systems broke down, their limited ability to cope.
They walked together down the stairs, into a wide, low-ceilinged room lit by fluorescent tubes. Used by the elementary school as a lunchroom, it retained a sandwich smell, peanut butter and tuna fish. At one of the long tables sat the council members, still wearing their coats.
“Father, it’s freezing down here,” said Kay Cleary, rubbing her plump arms. “Any chance we can turn up the heat?”
“I’m on it,” said Joe Veltri, springing to his feet. He was a small, spry man who worked part-time as the church custodian, a job Father Aloysius had created when Joe was laid off from Raytheon.
Art sat at one end of the table, Flip Finn at the other. Flip cleared his throat. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so I say we dive in. No sense waiting for anyone,” he said pointedly.
“I agree,” Kay said.
Just then Marilyn Burke swept into the room, shaking her wet raincoat. “Sorry, sorry. Traffic was murder. The rain,” she said, taking the empty seat next to Art.
She was his lone ally on the council—its youngest member and an obvious outsider, the only one not baptized at Sacred Heart. Over Marilyn’s objections, the council met at five-thirty precisely, which forced her to leave work early. She was a high-level administrator at South Shore Hospital; at least once during the meeting, a cell phone would ring inside her designer handbag—prompting frowns from the other members, all dressed for retirement in windbreakers and stretch pants. Kay Cleary favored seasonal sweatshirts: Easter bunnies, pumpkins in autumn, the Bruins or Celtics in winter. “I like to be comfortable,” she often said, though Marilyn Burke looked just as comfortable in her high heels and sharp suits. Kay had once complained to Art that Marilyn’s perfume gave her headaches.
(What am I, the hall monitor? he wondered. Am I supposed to tell her not to wear it?)
That night’s agenda was a long one. The annual church festival was approaching, which meant a hundred small decisions—tent rentals, liquor license, ads in the local paper—that Art was required to approve. He glanced periodically at his watch, fearing that his housekeeper had left for the day. This hectic week they had scarcely spoken; they’d communicated through notes attached to the refrigerator. Art longed for a face-to-face conversation. There were urgent matters—one, anyway—they needed to discuss.
It was nearly eight o’clock when the meeting adjourned. Art was halfway out the door when Marilyn Burke flagged him down. “Father, I have great news.” Her daughter Caitlin had settled on Notre Dame—this in defiance of her father, who’d lobbied for Boston College and offered bribes, a new car, to keep her in town. It was an ongoing tension in the marriage, Don Burke’s overprotectiveness, which to his wife reeked of sexism. The older Burke boy had gone to Stanford; at eighteen he’d been practically kicked out the door. Art had written for Caitlin several letters of recommendation. Don’t go crazy for BC, Marilyn had joked. Save the glowing praise for Notre Dame.
“The Fighting Irish,” Art said, grinning. “Good for Cait.”
Marilyn opened her mouth to speak, but Art was already moving. He gave her a wave as he crossed the street to the rectory, a large, rambling Victorian that had once housed a half-dozen priests. By the time Art was assigned there in the early nineties, the parish was down to two.
In the kitchen he found Fran Conlon—a large, comfortable woman, sixty or thereabouts, in a lavender trench coat and matching fedora. (It’s uplifting, she’d told him when he remarked on the color. He’d often seen her waiting at the bus stop on Atlantic Avenue, recognizable from down the street.)
“There you are. Weren’t they chatty tonight?” she said. “I was ready to bring you a sleeping bag.”
Art grinned, relaxing a little. For years now, his favorite part of council meetings had been grumbling to Fran afterward. There was no need to rush in, to pepper her with questions. He had the whole evening to steer the conversation around to Kath and Aidan. There would be plenty of time.
“They wasted twenty minutes complaining about the accommodations,” he said. “Two months in a row meeting in the church basement! I’ve been ordered to tell the AA people to get lost.”
“Let me guess,” said Fran. “It was Flip Finn leading the charge. Flip or Joe Veltri, one or the other.” She slipped off her coat. “Wouldn’t hurt either one to dry out a little. It’s the juicers who take it personal when anyone else shows some discipline.”
Art settled at the kitchen table and reached into his empty pocket for a cigarette. In the past year he’d quit, relapsed, and promptly come down with bronchitis. Now he’d quit again, but the reflex hadn’t left him. In moments such as this, he reached automatically for a cigarette.
“You look tired, Father.” Fran took a casserole from the fridge. “Have you seen the doctor?”
“I had to reschedule,” he said. “Monday. I promise. That smells good.”
“Corned beef and cabbage. Let me heat it up for you.”
“Don’t go to any trouble,” Art said.
She waved away his objections. “The next bus isn’t for forty minutes.”
“Don’t be silly, Fran. Of course I’ll drive you home.” His questions could wait until then, he decided. The conversation would flow more easily when his hands were busy, his eyes focused on the road.
“This is delicious,” he said. “Please have some.”
Nearly every weeknight they shared, by unspoken arrangement, the dinner Fran cooked. Still she waited for his invitation.
“Don’t mind if I do,” she said.
Fran’s cooking, like the woman herself, was warm and heavy and comforting. Her repertoire—stews and chops, boiled dinner, fish on Fridays—was identical to his mother’s, but there was no comparing the results. In his first months at Sacred Heart, Art, underweight his whole life, finally filled out a little. This was due as much to Fran’s company as her cottage pie. Since Father Aloysius’s departure, the dining room was never used. Art and Fran lingered at the kitchen table, talking sometimes late into the night.
On Spy Wednesday they covered their usual topics. Fran was an ardent Sox fan, a loyal reader of the Boston Herald, a cynical