memory-”it was quite nice.”
“I never had that sort of experience.”
“You didn’t?”
“I was in the convent, remember? By the time ‘Father’ arrived at his parishioners’ party, ‘Sister’ was working over tomorrow’s lessons plans. And by the time ‘Father’ was enjoying his after-dinner drink, ‘Sister’ was fast asleep.”
They laughed quietly.
“And now, here we are at a party together,” Pam said. “Only now we aren’t with parishioners.”
“True. Every husband in this room is a former priest or seminarian. And a goodly number of the wives are former nuns.”
“A lot of good men and good women.”
“Yes. What a waste!”
Pam patted her husband’s knee affectionately. “Don’t think about it.” She knew this had all the ingredients for a difficult evening. Their daughter, Irma, had urged them to go to the party even though it would reduce by one the number of evenings they could spend together as a family before her return to school after the Christmas holidays. Irma was just grateful that it was a party they were going to and not a meeting of CORPUS.
But Pam knew better. She had not shared her reservations about this party with her daughter. No sense in spreading gloom. Besides, it was entirely possible nothing untoward would happen.
Nonetheless, she was hypersensitive to her husband’s potential reaction to what he inevitably would encounter this evening.
A return to the active ministry had grown to become an obsession. What had begun as a harmless enough second-guessing of his decision to leave the priesthood and seek laicization had evolved into a matter of mental self-flagellation.
Her fears seemed warranted when she took stock of those who had showed up tonight. While some-albeit a minority-of the women had never been in religious life, every man present had once been either a priest or a seminarian who had not reached ordination. The solid majority had been priests. Every one of these men, to Fred’s way of thinking, should be as concerned as he about the state of the Church and the injustice involved in their being forbidden to use their priestly powers. And of course few if any of them spent much time thinking about it. None of them cared as much as Fred. And therein lay the possibility of a problem.
“You know,” Fred said, “I may be wrong, but have you noticed that these get-togethers are different from the parties we go to where the guests are laypeople?”
“How’s that?”
“Think about it. Remember the Christmas party we attended a little more than a week ago? The one sponsored by the State Psychology Society?”
“Yes.” Pam let her mind’s eye recreate the earlier party. The crowd at the psychology bash had been more stylishly dressed than the group here tonight. But the earlier party was formal. Outside of that and, of course, the fact that nearly everyone tonight had an explicit and strong religious background, while religion was not the long suit of the psychologists and their spouses, she couldn’t anticipate what Fred was suggesting.
“Well,” Fred continued, “we’ve been here almost an hour. About an hour after we arrived at the psychologists’ party, nearly all the men had gathered in the kitchen around the drinks. And nearly all the women were seated in the living room.”
“Okay,” she said, “I remember. So?”
“Well, just look at this group. No oil and water here. The couples are still together, talking to each other with no apparent need to separate the men from the women.”
With this perspective, Pam felt as if she were assessing the guests with new eyes. And as she recalled past gatherings, more than less they conformed to this general pattern. Secular-for want of a better term-assemblies did tend to split up according to sexes. It seemed that men wanted each others’ company, leaving women to themselves.
Or was it women’s topics of conversation? Did they talk about babies? House decoration? Clubs? Fashion? Was that why men isolated themselves in the kitchen? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did men make the first move to talk about work or sports or other sorts of “male” conversation, thus leaving the ladies to shift for themselves? Or were the men bored silly and ran away to preserve their sanity?
Whatever, it did not seem so with gatherings like the one tonight. She wondered why. This tended to be a singular mix of older people, most of whom had married comparatively late. Many were thus childless. As for those who were parents, most had only one child, and the ages of those children varied widely. Almost none had grandchildren, though most were easily old enough.
Pam’s speculation was silent. Fred’s was not.
“I think,” Fred said, “the people at parties like these are mostly of very strong character, especially the women. Much stronger women than average, don’t you think?”
“I guess so, ’ Pam agreed tentatively. “I haven’t mought much about it. But now that you mention it, I guess I’ve never met any former priest’s wife whom I didn’t like. At least there are so few I don’t get along with well that a negative experience is most rare.”
“See what a great support group we’d make for each other if the Church would be reasonable and let us function again.”
“Wait a minute, Buster … Pam quickly decided to be playful to lighten the subject. “When you are beating a path back to a former life, let me tell you, I don’t want back in a convent-and I don’t think that any other former nuns here tonight want to jump back over the wall.”
“Right you are, my dear. And I know of no organization that proposes such a reentry. If any of these women wants to get back into religious life it would be as a priest.”
“Again, count me out.”
“Noted. But some do. And they ought to be able to.”
“Hey, you two, you’re not allowed to have a nice time alone. You gotta join the rest of us and be bored.” One of the male guests had peeled himself away from the small group he’d been with and joined the Stapletons on the sofa.
“Oh, come now, Cass,” Pam responded, “you are constitutionally unable to be boring. That’s why you’re such a successful insurance agent.”
“Shh!” Cass Hershey held a prohibitive finger to his lips. “There may be somebody from the IRS here.” He looked about mock-furtively. “As a matter of fact, there probably is. They’re everywhere.”
Pam was glad Cass had joined them. He didn’t attend many of these gatherings so she didn’t know him well. But on the infrequent occasions they’d been together he was always light-hearted, full of fun, finding humor where others did not. Right now, given Fred’s preoccupation, Cass Hershey seemed just what the doctor ordered. So, instead of responding to his implicit invitation to join the others, thus risking a potentially embarrassing situation, she decided to try to draw Cass into their own conversation.
“Fred was just remarking,” Pam said, “what strong women the wives of ex-priests seem to be.”
“I’ll say!” Cass enthused. “It’s certainly true of Debbie. Wanna see my bruises?”
“Cass”-Fred’s tone carried nothing but good humor-”don’t you ever get serious about anything?”
“Work. Yes, I consider that to be serious business. Involving incidentals such as food, clothing, and shelter. But …” Cass hesitated. “… even then, sometimes you can’t get away from the light side of life, even at work.” He did not seem inclined to elaborate.
This line of conversation was just what Pam thought was needed. “Go on, Cass, tell us about it,” she encouraged.
“It wasn’t all that much, but it’s a true story, a slice of life.” Hershey had been sitting relaxed against the back of the sofa. Automatically, as a storyteller will, he sat up and leaned forwards. “Remember Noel Parker?” He directed the question at Fred.
Fred searched his memory. “No, I don’t think so. Should I?”
“He was a priest. Left recently. I recruited him for Massachusetts General.”
“How old is he?”
“Mmm … mid-thirties, I’d say.”
“Too young. I wouldn’t know him.”
