The Bishop at the Lake by Andrew M. Greeley

Author:Andrew M. Greeley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2007-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

14

“Don’t you dare weep, you filthy little whore-bitch!” Loretta Nolan tore herself away from her husband’s grasp and slapped Margaret. The latter recoiled from the blow, the mark of her mother’s hand red on her face.

“While I’m gone you’re going to destroy the firm and disgrace us all. I hope somebody slits your throat in a back alley in New Orleans after they’ve gang-raped you.”

“Loretta!” Spike Nolan’s voice sounded like a pistol shot.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t abort you like I wanted to! I’m sorry that I let your cunt of a father stop me!”

Her departure from Nolan’s Landing was grand drama, appropriately hysterical. It began with high-pitched, wordless screams that grew louder and louder as she progressed from an argument in their bedroom down the corridor around the spiral staircase to the first floor and into the vestibule. It then transmuted itself into sobbing, screaming, and cursing that pushed Josie and Eileen to hysterics which, while mild compared to Loretta, were nonetheless a high-decibel protest against the evil which was being worked on their poor mother.

I suspected they would be happy to see her leave and ready to renew their relationships with their husbands when she was gone.

“I hope you crash that funky airplane of yours and burn to death, slowly, painfully, a horrible death! When I finally get to heaven part of my joy will be looking down in hell and seeing you suffering for all eternity in a burning airplane! You deserve every ounce of suffering for the rest of your life! God damn you to hell for all eternity, you ungrateful bitch! And I blame your father because he wouldn’t let me abort though I knew what kind of a child you’d be—harsh and cruel and ungrateful and mean and vicious. I should have insisted on abortion! Rot in hell!”

“Phil! Get her out of here!” Spike ordered.

Though tears poured down her cheeks and her head was downcast, Margaret did not respond to this outpouring of raw hatred. She would never forget a word of it. While her mother’s outburst could be excused as a manifestation of mania, the substance of it was the way she felt about this unwanted child of her life.

“Please stop it,” Philip Nolan urged his wife. “When you calm down and are yourself again and have forgotten all the horrid things you’ve said, they’ll remember. I’m not sure the family can survive much longer.”

“You fucking son of a bitch! You always were a weakkneed husband and father! How could you choose your senile parents over me! I hope you rot in hell with your daughter! God damn you all to hell!”

Philip Nolan tried to ease her toward the doorway as did the doctor and nurse from Happydale Institute in Kokomo (that really was the name!). They had already given her a shot to calm her down but it wasn’t doing any good. In the limousine they would administer another shot and she would fall off the cliff of mania into the valley of deep despair.

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