Forbidden Fruit (51 page)

That single gesture brought home to me all the days and nights we had missed, the waking up each morning beside each other,
the sharing of our son, family vacations, family snapshots, family reunions, the sharing of heartaches and joys. Peter had
often complained that he had not a single photograph of himself with his father.

As I slipped in beside Eamonn, he drew the covers over me and, uttering a great sigh, began kissing me. That was the last
I knew till I awoke later that morning with him hovering over me with wide-eyed concern.

“How are you?”

I smiled. “Fine.”

“You look awful. Don’t go to work today.”

“I must, Eamonn, but believe me, this is far harder for me than for you.”

“How often do you take the day off?”

“Never.”

“Today’s the exception. I have over three hours till my meeting on Fifth Avenue at eleven and I can see you after that.”

I shook my head. If Arthur called me at work and found me missing, he would alert the media.

“Who’re you seeing on Fifth Avenue, Eamonn?”

“A few bishops and…”

I remembered he now moved in the highest circles.

“Who else? Cardinal O’Connor?”

“Indeed.”

The sheer honesty of his reply made me gasp. We looked steadily into one another’s eyes and both sadly smiled. We respected
each other too much to go back to deceiving ourselves and others. Above all, in my eyes, to misbehave would be to betray our
son.

I began to get dressed.

We had no money for a cab and he refused to call me a car on his Visa card. So he walked me slowly to Grand Central Station.
At the platform entrance, I said, “The next time we see each other, we’ll probably be in heaven.”

He rolled his eyes, full of mischief and sadness. “If we make it.”

“
I
will,” I said, expressing a confidence I did not feel. “If I did wrong, I paid for it a thousand times. But your refusal
to see your son —”

He hugged me tight. “Good-bye, Annie.”

“ ’Bye.”

I disengaged and walked on, with commuters whizzing in all directions around me, hoping he would call me back, hoping he would
hug me and say to me, “Come away with me at last, Annie, I’ll leave the Church, we can still make a life together.”

Had he done that, no matter how much he had hurt me and betrayed me and my son over the years, I would have left everything
and everyone and gone with him.

Not wanting to burst into tears, I did not dare look back. That was when I knew finally after eighteen lonely years that Eamonn
and I would walk our separate ways forever.

N
O SOONER WAS I AT MY WORKPLACE in Stamford at 9:30 than Arthur called. His tone was hostile.

“Where’d you stay last night?”

“Didn’t Mary tell you?”

“How could you stay with a raving bachelor like Jim Powers?”

“Peter and I slept on the couch.”

“I didn’t sleep a wink.”

I just managed to get in “Don’t you trust anyone, Arthur?” before he slammed the phone down.

When I got home that evening, Arthur fell on me like a tiger. His eyes were wild, his sparse hair was on end. Grabbing me
by the throat, he pressed me against the wall. In slow, ominous tones: “I… want… answers.”

Fearing I would choke to death, I kneed him in the crotch.

His eyes were watering even before he fell on his knees, clutching at himself. When he was nearly recovered: “Why… do… that?”

“Because I can’t stand violence,” I said.

As we shared a cup of tea, he said: “I imagined you sleeping with Eamonn. Then I thought slimeball Jim slipped you a mickey
and
he
had it off with you.”

“You are worse than Eamonn,” I screeched. “In one night, you have me in bed with two different men?”

“I can’t forgive you, Annie.” He went to bed and stayed there for two days.

When Peter came back from Jim’s, he was pleased Arthur was out of the way.

“The video,” he said. “Jim only got about half of the back of Eamonn’s head. We did, though, get a shot of him kissing you.”

“Great, Peter,” I said without enthusiasm.

“Where’s the tape you made?”

I fished it out of my pocketbook. I had made up my mind never to listen to it. I never did.

“The craziest night of my life,” Peter said excitedly before a sudden switch of mood. “Do you reckon Eamonn’ll call me?”

I said he might because he still had a few days before he went to Toronto to baptize the daughter of his first cousin Tim.
Day after day I prayed that Eamonn would call Peter. He never did. Why was he so stupid?

Eventually, Peter said, “Isn’t this just peachy? He goes hundreds of miles to baptize a distant relative and he can’t give
me a half hour. I really like my dear old dad.”

There were tears in his eyes as he said it. The tears were of grief; the eyes were of one hurt more than any jilted lover.

Next day, he told Mary that this grand family man, Eamonn, was in future going to have to deal with him. Without consulting
me, he went to a lawyer I knew, Anthony Piazza.

Piazza got from Peter an assurance that this was on his own initiative, not mine. He pointed out that it would take six months
to get the case to an American court. By then, Peter would be over eighteen and it would be too late. He suggested Peter get
an Irish lawyer to represent him. He recommended an acquaintance of his, Justin McCarthy, a solicitor with the firm of Kenny,
Stephenson & Chapman in Upper Mount Street, Dublin.

I called McCarthy on Thanksgiving Day 1991. I explained that I was representing Peter in his claim for child support and recoverability
of arrears against his father.

“Who is?”

“A bishop in Ireland.”

I did not name the bishop, but from my description McCarthy seemed to have no difficulty identifying him.

Such cases, McCarthy said, were held in
camera
in Ireland but since it was such a small place, the Bishop, fearing the news might spread, should come to a speedy settlement.

In his follow-up letter to me on December 4, 1991, McCarthy stressed he believed in “basic rules of fairness.” He wanted no
part in a vindictive campaign. If I gave him these assurances, he would go ahead in quest of arrears of maintenance, a financial
contribution to Peter’s further education, and succession rights under Irish law.

Having received documentation from Piazza that included a copy of Eamonn’s check paid to settle his suit with me, he wrote
me again on January 14, 1992. In his view, Peter might get a legal Declaration of Paternity, but an Irish court would probably
hold that $100,000 was sufficient settlement of all outstanding claims against the Bishop. Anything more, he felt, would smack
of blackmail.

He was also concerned that the father’s identity should be protected even from the court staff. “I am making arrangements,”
he wrote, “to discuss this with our senior judge.”

Peter was furious. Eamonn had already agreed that my settlement was distinct from his. Moreover, Peter did not want any more
cover-ups; he had been kept hidden as the Bishop’s secret sin for far too many years already.

McCarthy’s suggestion that the demands of justice were somehow a form of blackmail of poor Eamonn was bad enough. Worse was
the thought that the Irish legal system, from a senior judge down, was prepared to shield Eamonn from the public gaze. Peter,
a budding lawyer, exclaimed, “Justice must be
seen
to be done.”

He was more than ever determined to fight. Had Eamonn not been in the dead center of this hurricane, he might have approved
of his son’s courage and resolve.

In mid-January 1992, Peter asked Peter McKay to take on his case. McKay was as keen as McCarthy to keep it in the private
forum. Within days, he had renewed his contact with Father James Kelly from Brooklyn.

When, at McKay’s suggestion, I called Father Kelly, I found him anxious to work with us on a private solution to the problem
of Peter’s education. I told him the boy was no longer interested in that approach. Kelly replied that no lawyer, certainly
none in Ireland, would advise differently.

There was no movement for a few weeks. Until Peter said he simply had to prove that he was neither a blackmailer nor an extortioner.
Money was not important, but justice was. He was fed up with his father always being seen as the innocent party in need of
protection. “I’m the bastard, my mother is the bad woman. This has got to stop. I intend to clear my name whatever happens.”

There spoke Eamonn’s son.

He was fed up with taking what he called “dirt money.” Either his father talked with him and admitted everything or he would
have to suffer the consequences. Peter told Arthur he now knew no lawyer was going to help us and that he wanted to air the
whole matter publicly.

One night, Arthur whispered to me: “Peter can’t keep going through this torture, Annie. He’s going to do something wild, something
he can’t control. He has no idea of the power of the Church of Rome. If he holds a press conference, he has no proof. He’ll
be crucified.”

Right. Who would believe him? Publicity of that sort would only show me up as a thieving whore who was trying to blackmail
a bishop who had proved himself the Pope of the Third World.

After getting my agreement, Arthur rose at four the next morning and called the
Irish Times
in Dublin. He asked for the editor because it was a highly charged political and religious matter. He was finally put through
to the news editor. John Armstrong told him if he had documents to confirm his story, he would send his Washington correspondent
to meet us within three days. He warned us it could be a long drawn-out affair, not least because the libel laws in Ireland
are very stringent. Also, once the story was in the open, there would be no going back.

One cold early February night, Conor O’Clery of the
Irish Times
telephoned and came to see us at 10:30, soon after I got back from work. A tall, handsome man with friendly eyes, he struck
us instantly as not only very professional but someone we could trust. We gave him lawyers’ letters, copies of checks received
in recent years including the big one from Father Kelly, and my official letter of release to the Bishop.

After interviewing each of us, O’Clery’s conclusion was that we had a strong case. But not strong enough. His paper needed
more proof. Father Kelly offered a “large sum” for Peter’s education.

“Too vague,” Arthur said. “Name a figure, please.”

Kelly said that to get Peter through college would cost about $35,000. Law school would cost $30,000 a year for three years.
“We’re probably talking one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to do it right. If he needs more, we can go higher.”

Arthur, never less than honest, said, “You have to understand, sir, I have already spoken to the
Irish Times
. We are not going to stop this. Eamonn may pay up and still be exposed.”

Father Kelly, who was tough but very fair, said it was a matter of basic justice. “I think you should take the money, anyway.”

Arthur said, “If we go public, I reckon Peter would think that wrong.”

In March, in addition to sending two checks totaling $10,000 on Eamonn’s behalf for Peter’s first year in college, Father
Kelly wrote, “I have assurances from Eamonn that the total tuition costs will be paid.”

Eamonn had finally seen the raised paw of the tiger. If only he had tried shaking it, instead of thrusting money into it.

Feeling worried about Eamonn’s fate, I tried even at this late hour to make peace between son and father. “Peter,” I said,
“money is your passport to an education. Please think about Father Kelly’s offer.”

He had thought about it and made up his mind not to take any more hush money even if it meant only one year at college. He
wanted nothing less than a public acknowledgment that Eamonn Casey was his father.

At this time, strange things started to happen to our car. Tires were slashed, the brakes were tampered with. Arthur was a
good mechanic. He tightened the lug bolts and, next morning, they had come loose. Arthur felt a noose was tightening around
us. Each morning, he was the one to start the car in case it had been tampered with or booby-trapped.

Bridget, remarried, had moved back to Ireland and was living in Galway. I called her to tell her that a journalist from the
Irish Times
might want to interview her. Also, if it came to a court case, Peter might ask her to be a witness.

“If you don’t want to be involved, just say so.”

“I’ll have to think about this,” Bridget said. “Remember, I’m now living in Eamonn’s diocese.”

We joked a little about our Dublin days and how Eamonn and I had carried on our affair at Inch and in a Dublin gravel pit.

“Dear old Eamonn,” she said, “also spent many a juicy night in our flat, Murphy.”

For me, the most heartbreaking night was when Eamonn called Arthur. Peter and I were sitting close enough to Arthur to hear
both sides of the conversation.

Eamonn was whimpering, “I’m begging you not to betray me, Arthur.”

I put my hand in my mouth to stop myself crying out in pain.

“How can you betray me?” Eamonn was saying.

“To hell with
you
,” Arthur said. “You betrayed your son year after year. You still are.”

Eamonn said that he had already sent $10,000. “Didn’t Monsignor Kelly tell you I’m prepared to pay the entire cost of the
boy’s education?”

“The money isn’t important, never was,” Arthur snapped. “The kid wants recognition.”

“Sure I’ll give him that, too.”

“Too late, Eamonn. You may be a bishop and I’m only a carpenter. But I know a shithead when I see one. You’ve been given a
hundred chances to make it up with Peter. That’s why I’m going to take from you your seat, your miter, your ring, your palace,
your car. Every goddamn thing.”

“Plea-
ease
.”

I couldn’t take any more. I tried to grab the phone. When Arthur prevented me, I ran into the bathroom, jumped into the empty
tub, and put my hands over my ears.