Blood Ties Read Online Free Page A

plausible that women would feel more strongly than men about such a thing. Father Dowling said this aloud.
    â€œNot than George Lynch.”
    â€œThe foster father?”
    Dolan winced. “I have never heard him called that before.”
    â€œSt. Joseph was a foster father.”
    â€œI don’t think George would take comfort from that.”
    â€œSo what do you think will happen?”
    â€œI haven’t the faintest idea.” He smiled, an unhappy smile. “That is why I hesitated about coming to you. Whatever happens will happen, I suppose. Difficult as it might be in her case, I am sure that, with the proper help, Martha could find out what she wants to know.”
    â€œIs your daughter your only child?”
    â€œOh no. There is Maurice.” He seemed to consider saying more but added only, “He is another story.”
    Portrait of a man whose hopes for his children had been but imperfectly realized. Father Dowling caught the implications of that “another story.”
    â€œI could talk to Amos Cadbury.”
    â€œWould you do that? I thought of going to him myself but dreaded the role of the interfering grandfather. It would be different in your case.”
    â€œI will see Amos. And then we can talk again.”
    Dolan actually seemed relieved when he stood. He paused. “Sometimes I think of taking up smoking again myself. It can scarcely affect my longevity.”
    â€œI won’t tell the surgeon general.”
    *   *   *
    Two days later, Father Dowling had dinner with his old friend Amos Cadbury, often referred to as the dean of the Fox River bar. Father Dowling mentioned the Dolans and then asked about their son.
    Amos sighed. “Ah, Maurice.”
    The account Amos gave suggested that he had given thought to the difficulties of his friend Dr. Henry Dolan. “Father, the dark side of doing well when one has risen from the most modest of beginnings is that one’s children are apt to be spoiled by the lack of a sense of insecurity.”
    The Dolans had been blessed in Sheila, Amos added, and George was in every way the son-in-law Henry would have chosen. A medical man, soon at the top of his specialty, a solid and faithful husband. But no life is without its trials, and for the Lynches it was Sheila’s inability to carry a child to term. That great gap in their lives had been closed by the adoption of little Martha, and both Henry and George had been present at the birth, Henry administering the anesthesia, George just standing by. Henry had told Amos in a husky voice that he would never forget the image of George taking the newborn child in his arms. What a contrast between his son-in-law and his son.
    Maurice had managed to get into DePaul after Henry had a talk with the university’s director of development. “Of course, I wrote a letter of recommendation,” Amos said. “Ah, the letters of recommendation I have written for that boy.”
    â€œBoy.”
    â€œOf course you’re right. He will soon be forty.”
    Henry Dolan’s name was soon added to those supporting the university fund drive. Maurice hadn’t lasted a full year. Perhaps it was just as well. Not even a father’s blindness could enable Henry to imagine Maurice as a doctor.
    â€œThe fact is they had spoiled him. What want or whim of Maurice’s had ever been denied? I suppose that at first it seemed innocent indulgence, and always there had been the hidden hand of the father making things easy for the son.” Amos had seen on the wall of Maurice’s room a photograph of him in Wrigley Field, in the center of the picture, surrounded by the Cubs, ten years old and wearing a uniform. Half the players had signed the picture. There were signed baseballs as well, even one from the White Sox. Maurice had loved uniforms, even the military uniform of the school in Wisconsin from which he was expelled for misdemeanors neither Vivian