Pierced by a Sword (23 page)

"So I told Karl–"

"So it's Karl now, is it?" Chet interrupted with a wry smile, finally realizing that Joe had set him up for something.

"Yeah, I told Karl
that I had plans ready–radio program, publishing company, more recordings, Catholic bookstores for distribution, a professional association of Marian groups, a speaker's bureau, a national network of warehouse and shipping facilities, a television program, a monthly national prayer rally in every major city in every state, national secular advertising campaigns–and a few other modest projects."
Joe obviously didn't need to write up a list. It was already in his head.

Father Chet laughed out loud. The two men exchanged high fives. Chet practically had to leap to reach Jackson's hand.

"How did Slinger react? My goodness, Shoeless, you're talking about millions, tens of millions here–all to spread prophesies of Mary that may or may not even be true..." a worried tone crept into Chet's voice.

"He laughed so loud I thought the rafters would come down on me," Joe interjected. "Then he said, 'Fine, send an itemization of whatever amount it is you need on to Lenny Gold in Salt Lake City and have him set up an account to draw out funds on a per-need basis.' Then Slinger handed me his business card," Joe said matter-of-factly.

Father Chet was stunned.

And that's not all, you clever Irishman,
Joe thought.

Joe went on, "He also told me to get moving, because if I didn't think I was up to the task, he'd find someone who was. He said, 'No offense, son,' just like that, 'No offense, son, but time's a-wasting. I just wasted over fifty years myself, Joe.' He said it like I had just proposed we buy a chocolate sundae or something, Chet. Slinger's a lightning bolt, man."

Mary works like the
tide,
thought Chet.
Just like she worked in the Gospels. Silent. Powerful. You don't see her, but come back in a few hours and it's high tide.
Chet's father had always quoted those lines to his family before beginning the Sullivan family Rosary.

"That's not all, is it, Joe? You've got something else up your sleeve, don't you?"

Joe flashed a toothy smile.

"After reeling off my wish list, I told
Slinger I would trade any amount of money he could give me for just one thing."

"And what is that?" Chet was confused, but incredibly curious.
He's probably going to say something like a Mass from the pope,
Chet thought. The thought reminded him of the grisly death of Pope Patrick and the priest was saddened.

"I told him I needed a black robe," Joe said, somewhat cryptically.

"A black what?"

"A black robe, Chet–a priest. Like the Indians in that movie about the Jesuit martyrs. The Indians called priests the black robes. I told Slinger I needed you. I can't do all these projects–if I can do them at all, that is–without a spiritual director and a chaplain. We need the Mass said at the Kolbe Foundation–on its premises every day–"

"But I won't–" Chet tried to interrupt but Joe wouldn't
let him.

"–but nothing!" Joe insisted. "We need a priest who loves Mary and understands what we're doing. I know all the trouble you've been having with Monsignor Whelan. And Cardinal O'Donnell might be happy to let you go–he understands the Kolbe Foundation. Whelan hates how you hear confessions every day, preach about the pope and Mary from–"

"I won't do it! The subject is closed, Joe. Closed!
Period. I won't leave Notre Dame du Lac Parish. End of discussion."

A fierce look came over Father Chet's face. He turned abruptly and returned to Bruno's dining room, leaving Joe alone in the chilled October night.

Get thee behind me, ye Satan!
A passage from the Bible came to the stunned mind of Joe Jackson.

+  +  +

Joe stayed outside alone for several minutes pondering what had just happened
with Father Chet. At first he felt angry that Chet would so quickly trash an offer to be the chaplain of the Kolbe Foundation. Then Joe figured that Father Chet must have his reasons for not wanting to leave his parish in New Jersey.
Then,
Joe thought that if he could just find out Father Chet's reasons, maybe he could talk Chet out of them. Joe was not about to give up. He began to formulate
a plan to find out what was bugging Father Chet.

Lost in his thoughts, he was startled to hear Becky's voice behind him.

"Did you insult his mother or something?" she asked.

"Oh Becky, hello." Then he remembered her question.
She's asking why Chet left so abruptly. She must have been watching through the window.

"Oh, that. I'm sorry. I don't know why Father Chet left. I mean, I asked him to be
the chaplain for the Kolbe Foundation, but he won't do it. I'm sure he's got a good reason. I just wish I knew what it was."
Why do I just blurt out whatever I'm thinking to this girl?

She came next to him and boldly took his hand, which was large but surprisingly delicate.

"You don't talk much, do you?" she asked. He didn't remove his hand from hers.

"It's not that. Chet says I talk too much.
I love to talk with my friends and the Kolbe Foundation workers. My problem is that I'm always thinking so hard about something that I don't have time to speak."

"What do you
think
about me, Joe?" Her tone was confident, as if she was not afraid of any kind of answer he would give her.

It was the perfect question to ask Joe. Becky, consciously following Father Chet's example, began to pray a silent
prayer asking for Mary's help:
Whatever you want, Mary, is fine with me. I know what I want now. I want Joe Jackson.

There was something about Joe that neutralized any of Becky's natural inhibition. He seemed so approachable–so calm and reassuring in his bearing. It was not like talking to a man she had just met this morning. He had registered on an emotional level in her heart, but not necessarily
on her mind, as if she was reuniting with a long lost friend. Her temperamental boldness fit his inborn steadiness like two oddly shaped but perfectly fitted pieces of a puzzle.

Joe's mind was not slow, despite his ponderousness. He silently prayed for Mary to help him with the answer.

He had avoided thinking about Becky Macadam as a
woman
since he first saw her. Joe was a
fearless
thinker–along
the lines of a fearless thinker who lived in the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas, who was nicknamed the Dumb Ox in his younger years by peers who mistook his pensiveness for lack of intelligence. Once a line of reasoning started in Joe's mind he invariably followed it to wherever it led him.

"Can you wait for me for a few minutes, Miss Becky?" he asked politely.

His southern manners are
touching,
she thought.

"I can wait all night." She tilted her head up and smiled with her eyes.

She waited patiently for over five minutes, admiring him, thinking of Joe running after Nathan's pass on the South Quad like a powerful, beautiful thoroughbred. She thought of how chastely he looked at her, and of his gentle voice. She remembered her Rosary with him in the Grotto, listening to him pray
the Hail Mary with her in his unhurried, southern accent. Becky also remembered the look she and Joe had just shared across the table during the song inside Bruno's. He finally spoke up.

"Becky?"

"Yes, Joseph."

"I think I should marry you."

"Okay," Becky answered after only the slightest hesitation.

She turned and they embraced before the cars and the crops in the October moonlight. Becky felt
the first layer of love encircle her heart and knew there was more to come later.

Time passed.

"Joseph?"

They were still in each other's arms. Becky did not look at him as she laid the side of her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat through his shirt.

"Yes, my love," he answered softly, ever so slightly tightening his embrace.

"I think I should tell you something before you go off and
marry me. I'm pregnant. The baby comes in eight months." She bit her lower lip.

I should have told him sooner! Why did he have to ask me to marry him so fast! Now I'll lose him. He's too Catholic to want damaged goods.

She clung to him with all her strength, certain it would be her last embrace. Then he spoke, matter-of-factly.

"So?" he asked.

"So? So!" she repeated, her voice rising in anger.

Her emotions surged like lightning. "
So
why would you want to marry a pregnant girl? Tell me! Because you feel sorry for me?"

The bitterness in her voice surprised them both. She looked at him with the same look she had given Sam only two days ago before she threw him out of their–her–apartment.

Joe was not disturbed.

"Becky, listen. There's nothing to worry about with a baby. I'd be honored to
be the father of your baby, truly I would. I don't care how or by whom you got pregnant. I mean that. Look at me."

She raised her eyes to his.

He began to speak firmly, but tenderly.

"I have decided to love you. I just figured it out. You're the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I don't know
when
you got your faith back, but I do know it's not going away. I can tell. I can
always
tell."

Becky couldn't believe her ears, but he sounded so-so
certain.
She nodded, and a sob which started deep in her body escaped her. She never broke his gaze.

"I've always been so in love with Mary, that I never thought I could find a woman as beautiful as she is. And well, you are beautiful inside and out, like Mary. It's like Mary sent me a preview or something. I want to look at you every day for
the rest of my life. Life needs Beauty. My life does at least.

"This must sound weird. Does this sound weird, Becky?"

She shook her head. "To tell you the truth, Joe, you're starting to sound like Father Chet. No, it doesn't sound weird. I follow you, at least." The edge was leaving her voice.

That's good,
Joe thought.

"Well, anyway, I haven't had much experience with women. I've been saving myself
for you all my life. I'm like a room nobody has ever gone into. Only one person gets to go in that room, and that's you, Becky. That's what I was thinking about when you looked at me across the table during the song. I was thinking about the room, and I saw you walk into it, and I thought to myself: that's fine with me. That's fine with me, I thought. I never thought that about anybody, Becky.
That's what made me smile. You've probably figured out that I don't smile much. Heck, little kids cry when they see me in the mall!"

She laughed. The single tear that had escaped earlier was already drying. He gave her his handkerchief anyway. The tension was gone. She still couldn't believe it, though. Then she remembered the little Cub in her mitt.

"Doesn't it bother you that I've let someone
into my house?" she asked.

"Have you? Has anyone really gotten into your heart?"

He looked at her with a patience and peacefulness that gave her a chance to settle down.

Biting her lower lip and looking up a bit, she took a moment to think of the two men she had thought she loved in her past, and realized that she never did give her whole self to them. Independence had been the whole idea behind
"living together." In this setting, the concept of living together struck Becky as such a stupid and superficial way to waste one's time. She looked directly back to Joe and answered his question with a small shake of her head.
No one has ever come into my secret garden, Joseph, my darling.
Another question came to her.

"What about my baby? I don't understand–"

Even though her question didn't
have an edge anymore, he cut her off.

"Our baby, Becky. Our baby. I can explain." Even though it wasn't a question, he waited for her to nod again before continuing.

He's so considerate!

"I was adopted, Becky. It's as simple as that. It's a long story and I'll tell it to you eventually, but that's all you need to know right now. Now that I've decided to marry you, wouldn't it be hypocritical of
me to want to reject an innocent human life inside you after my own parents didn't keep me? I've been a prolife activist all my life. Nope." He appeared to be thinking on his feet as he spoke, a rare thing for Joe.

"Nope. It would be wrong for me to reject your baby," he said almost to himself, looking up to the stars briefly. "You can tell me about how you got pregnant if you feel like it, but
it doesn't matter to me. I mean, I want to know if you want me to know. I'm curious, I suppose.

"But in the meantime, my love, as far as I'm concerned, you're going to be my wife. The sacramental bond will make our marriage unbreakable. There are so many layers to love."

"Did you just say 'layer'?" she asked, with a hint of excitement in her voice. A smile broke onto her face like the headlights
of a car turning on. She heard a noise and turned to look at the door.

Two patrons came out the back door of Bruno's. Becky and Joe waited until they passed.

"Yeah, another layer," he confirmed, "like a wedding ring over an engagement ring. Does it mean something?"

"No, I mean yes, it means everything. I can't explain it."

He looked at her again as she shook her head ever so slightly. He saw the
very rarest kind of beauty in her expression. The beauty of innocence restored. Becky was not only physically beautiful, but she had a childlike quality that was precious. It was the same quality Father Chet noticed during his conversation with her at the Grotto.

Unless ye become like a little child, thou shalt not enter into the Kingdom of God,
Joe remembered a verse from his own innocent childhood
as he looked at his future wife.

There was a long pause as they stood holding hands, looking at the cornfield.

"You're going to find it hard to make me change my mind about marrying you, Becky. Ask Father Chet. He says I'm as stubborn as a Philadelphia lawyer and twice as stupid, whatever that means in Yankee talk," he said, not without a note of pride in his voice.