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she’ll be back early.”
    â€œWho’s the boy?”
    â€œShe says he’s a nice kid.”
    â€œWhat’s his name?”
    â€œShe said Dick. I didn’t ask her. For heaven’s sake, Frank, it’s pizza and a movie. She’s not going to marry him.”

Five
    D riving out to the Castles’ home in the Back Country, Sister Pat Brody told Monsignor Donovan that she had difficulty in accepting the basis of their errand.
    â€œIt is not an errand, Sister. It is a dinner invitation, and you are invited because Mrs. Castle may want to talk about matters that might make her uncomfortable speaking to a man. We are going to arrive a bit early, before the other guests, so that you can have at least a few minutes alone with her.”
    â€œBut why does she come to us? Why not to St. Michael’s, so much closer to the Back Country, or to St. Mary’s on Greenwich Avenue?”
    â€œShe is a very timid woman, and lives, I venture to say, in some fear, if not terror, of her husband. She doesn’t dare go to St. Michael’s because some of her husband’s friends might recognize her, and I don’t think she even knew that St. Mary’s is a Catholic church. She chose St. Matthew’s because it is at the extreme opposite end of Greenwich, and when she spoke to Father Garibaldi, he was just out of his depth and brought her to me. She is also very beautiful.”
    â€œWhich is the bottom line to most men!” Sister Brody, a plump woman with a sharp tongue, never stood on ceremony with priests.
    â€œYes, Sister, I’m afraid so. God made us that way.”
    â€œI’m glad none of our parishioners are listening to this conversation. I still don’t understand.”
    â€œThen consider our Secretary of State, who thought she was born a Catholic, until someone discovered that she was born Jewish.”
    â€œThat was the result of the Holocaust. It’s not comparable. You say this woman is about forty?”
    â€œYes. A guess. I didn’t ask her,” Donovan replied, somewhat defensively.
    â€œAnd you tell me that she believes that perhaps she is a Catholic? Or does she want to convert? Was she baptized?”
    â€œShe doesn’t know.”
    â€œBut how was she raised?”
    â€œLike a stray dog, from all I could gather. She has lied so much about her past that apparently she cannot separate invention from reality. She calls herself a Valley Girl, which is very pejorative in Southern California. She doesn’t know who her mother and father are, and she confessed to me that she had invented them. I don’t know that anyone will ever know the truth of her background, but there’s nothing bitter in her nature, but a certain kind of innocence. She used the word tramp in describing herself to me, but I don’t know. I hate the word, and perhaps she felt that by talking to a priest she could plumb some inner feeling that she was unable to reveal even to herself.”
    â€œYou didn’t confess her?”
    â€œNo, no, no, we simply talked. I don’t know whether she even knows what confession is, and her notions of Catholicism are confused, to put it in the best light. But she has no anchor and she lives in an environment—well, you’ll see for yourself tonight. She is also, as I said, afraid of the man she’s married to.”
    â€œWhat is he like?” Sister Brody asked, her tone of voice changing.
    â€œWhat is he like?” Monsignor Donovan repeated.
    â€œI presume he’s not a Catholic?”
    â€œNo. When they go to church, Christmas once and Easter once, they go to Christ Church, but from what she said, he has no affiliation with the Episcopalians or anywhere else. She said that some of his business friends go to Christ Church. Christ Church—well, she thought it was a Catholic church, and when she mentioned that to him, he became very angry.”
    â€œPoor child. What do you