Father Briar and The Angel (5 page)

He was devoted to both his
faith and his sense of duty for his beloved America; a man of god
and patriot. The Jesuits had provided him with the independence,
skills, and rigorous education to enable such self-sufficiency. He
was somewhat content with that, but only somewhat.

“
We’ll leave this here,
Jewels” said Cedric as he tied the line to a peg he’d drilled into
the ice. Only Cedric could get away with referring to Julianna as
Jewels; he had a special place in her heart.

“
God willing, this line
will have a mighty walleye on the end of it by the time we return,”
Cedric smiled.

“
How long will this take?”
Julianna wondered.

“
This is a game of
patience, to be sure. “ Cedric rustled his hands together and
donned his gloves. “Let’s take a walk on the lake!”

Julianna enjoyed making the
most use of the sunlight in the cold wintry days, for it lifted her
mood and she enjoyed the long shadows it casted over the powdery
white landscape. Brannaska was a magical place to be in during this
time of year, if you could stand it, so she agreed to the walk.
That she was walking on ice frightened her, though.

“
What an appropriate
metaphor,” she thought ruefully. “Even when I find a great man to
walk through life with, circumstances conspire against us so I can
never be on safe ground.”

“
You really do get to see
the splendor of God’s panorama out here,” Cedric said, motioning to
the view spread out before them.

The colors were so vibrant
as to seem unnatural. “Or actually,” Julianna said, “completely
natural. Like fruits, like the Platonic ideal of a fruit. Banana
yellows and apple reds and grape purples. So rich that I think they
were from the hand of some painter.”

“
Raphael used those sorts
of colors,” he said. “I saw them in the Vatican when I went there
right after the war on a tourist visit. “He painted with a
hyper-saturated palate to give a heightened sense of realism. He
did this so he could better glorify God.”

“
The wind is a bit raw,
though,” she couldn’t help but comment.

“
You betcha it is,” he
said, using a bit of the local lingo he’d picked up in his limited
time there. She giggled. He had a sly way of being funny; never
mocking, but a sideways appreciation of things that made her
believe he always knew a little secret about the world that nobody
else was in on.

He certainly carried
himself as though he did. Despite his unremarkable body, there was
lightness in his step and a gentle bigness to his heart that made
him very attractive. There was nothing that screamed “look at me”
about him, but then if there had been, she assumed, their
relationship would’ve been discovered at its outset.

A snow hare bounded in
front of them, just barely light enough to leave its tracks in the
snow. It puffed along like popping corn, bouncing across the frozen
upper layer that lighter creatures were fated to trudge
through.

“
There is nothing
remarkable out him, either,” Julianna noticed, “he’s perfectly
camouflaged by fitting in to his environment.”

While out on their walk,
Cedric drilled a few more hole in the ice and dropped down lines on
heavy lead sinkers. These he would check later in the afternoon,
after the black and plump worms had hopefully lured gullible fish
on to the small tin hook.

This was one of the first
times they’d been able to hold hands in public. Some of the thrill
was lost because they were wearing thick knitted mittens. And it
wasn’t exactly public; there were acres and acres of open lake
spread out around them and a tiny scattering of
icehouses.

“
America is vast and
America is empty,” she thought. The emptiness of it all was almost
overwhelming and made her feel lonely, so she clutched Cedric’s arm
a bit tighter.

He was a bulwark against
the wind and the loss.

When they got back to the
icehouse, Cedric dried his clothes by the fire, the flames
flickering. His jacket, now hung on the three rusty nails that
served as their makeshift door knob, steamed in the
heat.

He was silent in prayer as
he sat in his chair. The hours rolled on. Julianna sewed and the
pair sat in silence; they acted several decades older than their
actual age.

They behaved as though they
had been married for a half a century instead of secretly courting
for a scant and separated few years. The sun lowered and dusk
approached.

“
We had better get back to
the lake and check the rest of the lines, unless, of course, you
would prefer to stay here and sew?”

Julianna smiled back at
Cedric, she had always appreciated his mild-mannered
cheek.

They walked with a
marathoner’s purpose back to the holes. The tops of them had now
crusted over with ice and he poked his way through with a little
claw-hammer he’d stuffed in his coat packed. Julianna looked down
at the borehole he’d drilled in the ice. Cedric pulled up the line.
It seemed to take an eternity. The anticipation grew.

“
Yes, there is something
on the end of this, for sure, Jewels.”

She was curious.

“
Here we are,” Cedric said
as he pulled out a sizeable walleye pike from the depths. The sight
of its long and slender body emerging from the murky water excited
Julianna and she couldn’t help but giggle.

This winter season,
however, was a record breaker and it soon drove them inside, back
to the shelter of the icehouse.

“
Uff da, it’s a harsh
one,” as the Minnesotans would say. The plains were buried under
drifts of snow for months on end. The winters seemed relentless and
the past few years, for whatever as yet undiscovered reasons, had
been harsher than normal.

Cedric tried to open the
door to no effect. The heat from the cabin had thawed on the panel
and refrozen around the frame of the door.

“
Weather is bad huh?”
Julianna said to Cedric.

“
Sure is!” Cedric put his
hand on the door as he looked down on the ice. Inspired, he grabbed
his claw hammer. “We’ll be alright,” he reassured her, and chipped
away at the new, clear ice for a few minutes until the door swung
open with a groan the both appreciated.

He stoked the flames, the
wood cracked and embers whirled up the chimney, which he’d
fabricated out of empty cans of Folgers Coffee and Swift’ning Brand
Pure Lard. Julianna liked the red and white tin that the shortening
came in and she made a note to remember in the future that Cedric
liked the tins for his bait.

Finally tired, she heaved a
sigh.

“
What is troubling your
mind?” he asked.

“
This dark cold place,
that’s what.” The winter months had this effect on many
Minnesotans; it was exponentially different for transplants like
Julianna.

“
I’ve endured this before
and together, we’ll endure it again. Plus Jewels, these cozy nights
in have their charm.” Cedric shrugged off these bad moods. You had
to in these parts. It was too brutal to do otherwise.

“
You know Jewels; being
stuck in this shack does remind of Jesus suffering in the
desert.”

Julianna rolled her eyes.
She had heard this parable countless times. She huffed in her chair
and wished she could escape the confines of the tiny wooden
shack.

“
I’m trapped in here with
the world’s most repetitive man!” Julianna poked the fire, the
discontent in her heart showing in the agitation with which she
poked the fire. A few sparkles flew out and landed in the snow,
sizzling briefly before puttering out

She worried their love
would do the same thing. Would it burn hot and then be extinguished
in the snow?

Cedric looked on in
surprise; usually such a placid woman, calm and contemplative,
Julianna’s visible frustration was new to him. So many things about
her were new to him; this was the first month that they’d ever
spent together, despite being in love for the past few
years!

He knew the ice beneath
their feet was a stronger foundation than their love. But he
believed, he had faith, and so he knew they’d work through these
trivialities.

Less trivial? The drive
home. The lake was a good hour and a half from Brannaska. There
were closer lakes, sure, four hundred and sixty two of them within
twenty five miles of town, but they felt safer and more private the
further away they got.

Cedric didn’t like to drive
after dark, especially in the icy conditions. But tonight they had
no choice. He had to be back at the parish house, he had duties in
the morning.

So they reluctantly packed
up and he drove home with all the concentration and safety he could
muster. The car tires picked their way across the dangerous roads,
which offered no purchase or solid footing the entire
trip.

WCCO Radio played on the AM
dial as he drove; the fifty thousand megawatt behemoth out of
Minneapolis was the boon companion of many a farmer throughout the
Midwest.

Kept awake by the talk and
big band tunes from the radio and warmed by sitting a little closer
together in the front seat than they maybe should’ve, they made it
home safe and with the grace of God.

Chapter Five: Social
Media Was The Same and Different Back Then and Up There.

It was the Wedding of the
Century and Julianna was jealous as hell. Marilyn was marrying
DiMaggio. She was a first name, he was a last. It was the ultimate
All-American romance, the ultimate in lusty glamor, the ultimate
fairy tale. Joe DiMaggio was the tall, skillful hero of the
country’s national pastime, one of the greatest players the game
had ever seen. Cedric wasn’t a baseball fan, so he was indifferent
to DiMaggio and his exploits.

The same thing could not be
said for Julianna’s feelings about Marilyn. She loved the Hollywood
idol and curvy sexpot, star of the silver screen and the world’s
greatest pinup girl, loved her like a best girlfriend. Through the
tabloid papers and glossy gossip magazines, she’d followed the
progress of their courtship the way men (other than Cedric, who was
a hockey fan) followed the baseball box scores in the
newspaper.

Two years prior, in 1952,
the New York Yankees star DiMaggio asked an acquaintance to arrange
a dinner date with Monroe. Such was the power of fame! The buxom
blonde model wasn’t a huge star, yet, but had been in a few movies,
movies that Julianna had loved, like the hilarious
Monkey Business
and
Julianna had thought that Marilyn had done an “award winning job”
in her leading role in noir thriller
Don’t
Bother to Knock,
which could charitably be
called a B-movie.

Really due more to
DiMaggio’s fame than Monroe’s (he was the biggest star in the
biggest game in the biggest city) the press started to cover the
relationship, giving ink gallons of in and acres of column
space.

According to what Julianna
had read from the gossips, Monroe and DiMaggio preferred to keep a
low profile. “Ha, like that is possible!” laughed Julianna that
frozen January morning, flipping though some old magazines. One
article read, “the new couple are the same as most young lovers,
spending evenings at home or in a back corner of DiMaggio’s
restaurant.” That most young lovers didn’t own their own
restaurants had somehow escaped the author.

Today’s marriage, much to
Julianna’s chagrin, was at San Francisco City Hall, not at the
church.

“
DiMaggio is a really
strong Italian name, he’s a Catholic, he’s got to be. Why aren’t
they getting married in the church?” she wondered.

The newlywed pair were
mobbed by reporters and fans. Monroe had stage-managed the whole
thing, giving the wedding plans to someone at her film studio, who
subsequently “leaked it” to the press.

Julianna imaged what their
marriage would be like, she imagined what being married to DiMaggio
would be like, and she imagined what being married to Cedric would
be like.

“
I think they’ll get a
pool. Surely they’ll have a house in Hollywood and an apartment in
New York. Here, folks are content with a homemade, hand-flooded, do
it yourself hockey rink and a cabin at the lake. Heck, I’d be happy
with that!” she thought.

“
Think of all the
glamorous places they’ll go, think of all the fun they will have.
Next week they are off on their honeymoon to Japan, and that is
just the start! With that much money and that much love, what could
go wrong?”

After being both envious
and proud of Joe and Marilyn for a while, she imagined what
marriage with Cedric would be like. Lots of kids, she assumed,
since he’d come from a big family and had naturally, a Catholic
view of birth control. Probably enough kids for a hockey team.
They’d need a “home team,” since she knew he’d use the green garden
hose to flood the backyard to create one of the rinks that
Minnesotans considered as essential as pools were to
Californians.

What circumstances could
lead to it? He could leave the priesthood. That was it. And he
didn’t want to do that, and she wasn’t even sure that she wanted
him to do that.