“Growing back my beard,” he said in Italian, giving me a broad grin. “My editor likes my pages, and now I’ve got a dog.”
“A dog?”
“Chihuahua named Jeter. He travels well.”
We talked baseball for a while, and that was when I forgot that Zach was a reporter. He was just Yank. I told him that I was working on all cylinders and James was, too. That James looked tired, but he was doing what he loved.
“I get that,” Zach said. “Me too.”
Gilly came over and told Zach that she had had a dream about him. “You were Zach and the Beanstalk,” she said.
When it was time to go, Zach hugged me, kissed my cheek, as always, and waved good-bye.
I asked myself once again if Zach’s book was really going to be good for JMJ or if it would be just another punching bag for the cardinal.
I didn’t know it then, but Zach Graham was the least of my worries. I was about to be blindsided by someone much closer to home.
Chapter 104
WHEN I took my seat opposite celebrity broadcaster Morgan McCartor on the 60 Minutes set, I didn’t have the slightest premonition that my secret life was about to be cracked wide open.
James was home sick with the flu, but the pre-taping of the show couldn’t wait. McCartor was unconcerned about the programming change and introduced me to her TV audience of twenty-five million viewers. She sketched out the highlights of my life in glowing terms, from my work at Kind Hands, my near-death injuries on the battlefield, and the tragic loss of Karl and Tre, to my dramatic marriage to James Aubrey, my ordination, and the turmoil our movement had brought to Catholicism worldwide.
I almost couldn’t take so much attention and fought the urge to squirm in my seat.
McCartor, on the other hand, was in her element.
She was beautiful and smart and was so familiar to me from her interviews of presidents and killers and rock stars, I almost thought of her as a friend. She tossed me some softball questions, and I got relatively comfortable, and then she hit me with her best shot when she said, “Brigid, take a look at this clip, will you?”
I watched as my darling Gilly’s face filled the big screen. She was wearing a cherry-print jumpsuit with mismatched socks and shoes, her new favorite look this summer. An off-camera voice was saying to her, “Gilly, when you say your mom talks to God, you mean she prays, isn’t that right?”
And Gilly, my dear daughter said, “Sure, she prays. But sometimes when she talks to God, He talks back to her. She told me so.”
My face heated up. Gilly. What made you say that?
McCartor was saying, “Brigid, tell us what your daughter means. Do you converse with God?”
I had to decide right then, with cameras rolling, whether to tell the truth and risk whatever fallout ensued, or to deny my connection to God.
Morgan McCartor was saying my name.
“Brigid? Is it true that you not only speak to God, but He speaks to you?”
I was thinking fast, editing my own thoughts. How could I explain my personal experiences with God without sounding insane?
I gave it a try, relaxing my shoulders, speaking to my “friend” Morgan as if we were sitting together over coffee at a kitchen table.
I said, “Sometimes, on rare occasions and never on demand, my mind is filled with what I feel strongly is the word and presence of God. It’s a momentous experience, and while it’s happening, it’s as if I’m both in the actual, physical present and, at the same time, in a metaphysical realm. I see moving images unlike anything I have ever seen or could ever imagine. I hear a resonance, almost like a voice, responding to a question in my mind. I have to interpret these visions and find the answers to my questions within them.”
McCartor was right there, ready to ask, “What kind of questions, Brigid? What kind of answers? What can you share about this amazing phenomenon with us?”
“I can say that the first time I experienced this-this overpowering connection-was the day that I was shot. My heart stopped, and it took several minutes to bring me back. Technically-and by that I mean literally-I died. I’ve been neurologically cleared by the best doctors. I don’t have brain damage, and I’m not crazy. So, what do I think? That through my death, a channel opened in my mind to the presence of God.”
I conveyed a full stop after “God,” and the TV interviewer got it.
“That’s all you’re giving us?”
I laughed. “Seems like an awful lot to me.”
McCartor said, “Thank you, Brigid, for this most extraordinary interview.”
She turned directly to the camera and told the audience what to expect in next week’s show, and then hot lights went out, stagehands applauded wildly. McCartor leapt out of her chair and embraced me.
“You’re an amazing person, Brigid. It’s hard to believe what you’ve told us, but I do believe you. I’ve never had an interview like this. You’re inspiring to so many people. You’re the real thing. And, take it from me, I know the real thing.”
Chapter 105
LAWRENCE HOUSE was on a bar stool at Cal’s Roadhouse, watching 60 Minutes on the TV over the bar, when Morgan McCartor signed off. Sunday-night drinkers crowded the far end of the bar, a group of rowdies crowded the dartboard, and a couple of kids were fooling around in a booth in the back.
Typical night in a one-saloon town.
House said to the bartender, “Bill. Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“Our lady priest was on TV again.”
“Oh, her. Can I get you another one?” Bill asked House.
“No, I’m done.”
A fanfare came over the TV, announcing a breaking news story. House grabbed the remote and turned up the volume as the on-screen reporter intercepted Cardinal Cooney leaving the Boston Archdiocese and heading to his car.
The reporter asked, “Your Eminence. Do you have a comment for us on the Sixty Minutes interview with Brigid Aubrey?”
The cardinal scowled at the camera, then said, “Brigid Fitzgerald Aubrey has said more about her loosely wrapped mind than anything I can say. She’s delusional or blasphemous or both, but in any case, she took the Lord God’s name in vain. She can answer to Him.”
“YES,” thundered House as he thumped the bar with his empty glass. “That’s right, Cardinal. You got that right. Woman’s a fraud and a heretic.”
The bartender was mopping the bar. House shouted to him, “The backlash is coming, Bill! The tide is turning. God-loving people are getting fed up.”
On screen, the cardinal disappeared into the backseat of his car, and the TV reporter turned to face the camera.
“Chet, I’ll be outside the Millbrook JMJ church tomorrow, see if I can get Brigid Aubrey’s comments.”
House slapped some cash on the bar, said “Good night, Billy,” to the bartender, then walked outside onto the street, empty except for the fallen leaves scudding across the pavement.
He unlocked his car and got in.
He sat for a few minutes, thinking about what Brigid had said, how disturbing it was to hear her sickening so-called experiences going out all over the country. It was good, what Cooney had said. But was it enough? Mrs. Aubrey had fouled the name of God with her sick mind. She and her predator husband were infecting true believers with their dangerous nonsense, and nothing seemed to stop them.
House started up the car and drove to the intersection of Main and the highway and parked under a tree where he had a good view of the lights coming from the upstairs windows of the rectory.
He switched off the engine and settled in to watch and to wait. While waiting, he prayed to God.
Chapter 106
JAMES WAS celebrating the second Mass of the day with a full church on a sunny morning in August.