Patrick had already read the memoir to be sure it contained nothing that libeled the Blackstones. The memoir seethed with resentment, but if all it did was assert Mick’s opinions, the Blackstones had no legal cause to block its publication.
“The memoir is foul,” he said. “Most of it is bellyaching about the indignities he’s endured at the hands of the Blackstones. Not that the Blackstones are angels, mind you. There’s something deeply tricky about that family. They sent a woman to bribe me into scuttling the book.”
“What woman?” Father Doyle asked.
Memory of his irrational attraction to the Blackstone woman still plagued Patrick, and he sent a cautious glance toward the old priest. “Gwen Kellerman. She claimed to know you. Does she?”
“I’m well acquainted with Mrs. Kellerman,” Father Doyle said in a warmly approving tone. “She is the sort of quiet, gentle light that makes the world a better place.”
It wasn’t what Patrick wanted to hear. It would be easier to dismiss his attraction if she’d been stamped in the same ruthless mold as the rest of her family. He shrugged off Mrs. Kellerman and shifted the conversation back to Malone.
“I know Malone kidnapped that child,” he said. “If he was willing to confess and repent, I’d gladly help him make a clean breast of it. But no, he wants money so he can move to Brooklyn. He’s slime, Father. Next time you kick a case my way, try to find someone who isn’t up to his eyeballs in corruption.”
“Already done,” Father Doyle said agreeably. “The holy sisters who run the primary school are having trouble paying their water bill, and the city is threatening to cut them off. I was hoping you might volunteer your legal services.”
Patrick nodded. “Whatever you need. You know that.”
Father Doyle had funded Patrick’s education, but the church rarely wanted men fresh out of school to assume the responsibilities of the priesthood. After college, Patrick began practicing law and got plenty of experience in the real world, then returned to the seminary once he was ready to proceed into the priesthood. He continued practicing law while studying theology, but two weeks before taking his final vows, he balked.
His gaze strayed to the delicatessen across the street. The owner had a young and shapely daughter named Bettina, and Patrick’s willpower stumbled one autumn afternoon when he spent a forbidden few hours with her behind an abandoned rail station. He wasn’t cut out to be a priest; he wanted a wife. He wanted a partner and a mother for his children. He wanted a big, rollicking family along with a woman he could kiss and hold until dawn. Trying to deny that longing was like asking his heart to stop beating.
He didn’t want a quick, shameful tryst behind a rail station. He wanted the blessing of God and his community when he stepped out with a woman by his side. Patrick had been shaking in mortification when he confessed his forbidden encounter with Bettina to Father Doyle, but his mentor didn’t seem surprised.
“The priesthood is a calling,” he had said. “We can’t have reluctant warriors in our ranks, but there are plenty of other ways you can serve God in the world.”
Thousands of people never set foot in a church and instinctively recoiled from priests wearing that intimidating clerical collar, but they might listen to a former boxer with scars on his body and an accent like theirs. Patrick lived among the ordinary people—rich or poor, clean or struggling in the muck—and tried to teach by example.
As much as it hurt, turning away from the priesthood had been the right decision. He did good work on the street, helping keep kids out of the gangs and giving hope to the downtrodden . . . but he wanted a family. He even envied Mick and Ruby Malone. They were so crooked they couldn’t walk a straight line if a pot of gold was waiting at the end of it, but they loved each other. They were never lonely.
God would send him the right woman when it was time. For now, he would seek out Mrs. Kellerman to decline her offer, and then he would forget about her.
5
The greatest disappointment of Gwen’s eight-year marriage was that she failed to conceive a child, but she found solace in the company of the children who made their home at Blackstone College. President Matthews’s two boys often climbed the fence separating their yards to play in Gwen’s garden. Then there was little Mimi, whose mother worked in the accounting office. Mimi was eight and suffered a number of physical disabilities that prevented her from attending a normal school, so she spent her days on campus. She was a favorite among the students, who coddled and protected her.
This morning Gwen sat with all three children at her backyard koi pond, the centerpiece of her garden. A physics professor had installed the pump, and a group of students had helped her stack rocks to create levels within the pond so that water splashed down the tiers and attracted birds and butterflies. There was plenty of room to perch on the flat rocks surrounding the pond, and the children loved to feed the fish.
Naturally, the boys started pelting the food at the fish, but what could one expect from six- and eight-year-old boys?
“Be gentle,” Mimi said from where she sat on a chair next to the pond. The iron braces on her legs made it impossible for her to clamber over the rocks like the boys. Life wasn’t easy for Mimi, who already wore thick eyeglasses and depended on a rolling walker. Nevertheless, she lit up the entire campus with her bottomless good cheer, and Gwen had always been protective of her.
“This one is fat,” the older boy said as he dangled a bit of lettuce just above the surface of the water. “I’ll bet it’s pregnant with a baby.”
Gwen bit back a smile. “Koi don’t have babies. They lay eggs.”
Behind her glasses, Mimi’s brown eyes grew wide. “When is she going to lay eggs? Can I watch? Will you let me name the babies?”
Before Gwen could answer, the older boy started climbing the oak tree, reaching for a tiny plant that had taken root in one of the deep chinks in the tree bark.
“Leave it alone,” Gwen cautioned. “I don’t know how much longer that bromeliad can survive in that spot, and I want to protect it.”
“Why is it growing on a tree trunk instead of in the ground?” Mimi asked.
“The wind must have carried the seed there,” Gwen answered. “They can lie dormant for years before a bit of water and heat awakens them. Seeds are hardy little things, and I admire that.”
“I admire that too,” Mimi said, looking at the bromeliad in its precarious perch.
“Ahem.”
