Chapter Text
Patrick ‘Paddy’ McCormack, the unassuming heir to the McCormack’s Dry Rolled Oats dynasty, glanced along the pew at the children and returned his wife’s smile before turning to face forward. It was a rare Sunday indeed that they could all get to church together in the morning. Any plans they made were plagued with disorder, and every activity seemed to entail a great deal of last-minute fuss. Just this morning Mary had misplaced her hat, little Annie had thrown a tantrum over breakfast, normally-reliable Darren had overslept, and he himself had been unable to find a matching pair of socks. It was exhausting! He supposed it was inevitable, though; Mary had never had any great talent for household management.
No, that was uncharitable of him. The beginning of Father McKenna’s sermon had drifted past Paddy’s ears largely unnoticed, but something about not judging others suddenly lodged in his wandering mind. It wasn’t all Mary’s fault; not at all. Hadn’t he always found it shockingly easy to slip into a casual, almost loutish attitude outside of work? It was just as much his fault as Mary’s that the general attitude in the household was so undisciplined that they never even made it to church half the time.
The acute knowledge that they had made it to church this time, the uncomfortable pew, the familiar sights and smells and sounds, naturally led Paddy’s thoughts from the notion of fault to that of guilt. This chaotic life he struggled through sometimes felt like penance.
After all - unbeknownst to anyone else here - he carried the burden of a sinful secret. It might very well be the greatest sin of anyone in the church that day. Paddy’s secret sin weighed heavily upon him under the sombre droning of the priest’s voice.
This secret had been gnawing at Paddy for decades now, and he felt as though he’d used up all of his cleverness just trying to keep it hidden. Maybe that’s why he was such a scatterbrain nowadays, leaving every important thing to the last minute just like Mary always had. Or perhaps he had become foolish on the outside to match the miserable mess he was on the inside. If the neighbours still hadn’t forgiven him for putting that hole in their shared wall when he’d tried to add a window to his own living room, even though the damage had long since been repaired, could anyone ever forgive him for what he’d done if the truth became known?
“God will forgive your sins!” intoned Father McKenna, momentarily breaking Paddy’s reverie. That might be true, he thought, but the forgiveness of mortals also seemed important - though considerably more fragile and elusive.
If he confessed to save his soul, revealing his misdeeds to God and the priest, would the secrecy of the confessional protect his family from shame? Would McCormack’s Dry Rolled Oats be tainted by the scandal, share prices tumbling irrevocably? He’d always prided himself on keeping a low profile, not letting his face be the face of the company, trying to live humbly despite the corporate wealth behind his name – would he and his family be at risk? (He imagined the sight of grim-faced security guards flanking his front door like bouncers at a nightclub.)
Worse yet – would he be at risk from his family? Would they blame and hate him? Or would they threaten each other? Goodness knows what might happen if his secret got out.
He felt sure his family wouldn’t take kindly to having the carefully constructed fantasy of their lives swept away like a sandcastle in a rising tide.
He and Mary had wed when they were young and foolish, but the marriage had survived. There was nothing false about the affection he still felt for her, and which she still seemed to reciprocate. Mary had changed very little, in fact, despite the years. Still slender as a mannequin, with those lovely long legs; still flaunting her blonde curls (the colour had never been natural, even when he first admired it all those years ago, but she loved it); still fluttering through life with the best of intentions.
Paddy had to admit that he’d aged much more poorly, having gained a great deal of weight and lost much of his hair over the years. To anyone impertinent enough to ask, this deterioration was due to the stress of his job. Secretly, however, he blamed the stress of his carefully orchestrated private lives.
Mary knew he had money when they married, but she wasn’t the gold-digger one might have expected; instead, she was a rare angel who loved the man rather than the famous name. It was perhaps telling that they’d joked more about having an endless supply of porridge than about having an endless supply of money. Mary wasn’t good with money anyway (she always claimed to have a head like a sieve) so she was more than willing to let Paddy handle their finances. So long as Mary could be reassured that they’d never truly have to go without, and that their children would be well provided for, she seemed happy to live an ordinary - even humble - life. That in turn made Paddy happy, as he’d never wanted to let wealth cause him to become entitled and out-of-touch.
Not that he was really all that wealthy at first - the company his late father had left him was a modest one – but he was wealthier than many. He’d reasoned that if they never adopted extravagant spending habits, they’d be able to afford good schools for their children and leisurely retirements for themselves while still living comfortably. He’d managed to convince Mary of the soundness of this plan, and as they grew accustomed to their mostly-ordinary life, she came to trust him implicitly with the management of all money matters.
He'd managed the money admirably. He’d kept them all afloat and then some – the house was paid off and there were generous savings for each of the children, plus they could afford vacations to Europe, his golf club membership fees, and even occasional changes of wallpaper according to Mary’s whims. It just so happened that he took advantage of Mary’s complete lack of interest in financial matters to avoid telling her the true amount of money now rolling in from McCormack’s Dry Rolled Oats Inc. Yes, it was lying by omission, and undoubtedly sinful. But was it fraudulent behaviour? She was his wife, not his accountant – and furthermore, she had agreed to a modest lifestyle well before the increase.
Really, his true financial worth was the least of what he had been hiding.
Paddy McCormack still personally managed several aspects of the McCormack’s Dry Rolled Oats company, which entailed frequent business trips away from home. He and Mary had gotten used to seeing each other in small doses during the early years of their marriage, when his work took up most of his time and Mary was working shifts at the retirement home. However, with the constant advance of technology and the company’s increasing profits, the things he had to do took up less and less of his time as the years went by.
Just look at marketing, for example. He used to handle a lot of that himself in the old days; it was less about designing posters (though he felt he had a knack for that) and more about endless telephone calls and meetings. Nowadays there were all sorts of tricks to make products practically sell themselves. To take just one example, you could pay those flashy young people who called themselves “influencers” to talk about your products every day to all of their followers! Very clever indeed. As a result of all these changes, Paddy gradually found himself with more and more spare time even as more and more money rolled in.
Gradually. That was the trouble. It had crept up on him so slowly that he’d begun filling up the time without even thinking about it, and without talking about it either.
True, Mary knew he went golfing on occasion, and drinking with business associates or his golf mates on other occasions; but sometimes when he came back from a business trip, he’d neglect to mention that only half the time had been spent on any sort of business. After a while it became increasingly awkward even to contemplate confessing the whole truth, and it felt unnecessary to do so when he still brought in more than enough money and did his best to be there for his wife when they were together.
When they weren’t together, well, that was a different and increasingly complicated story.
Before the children came along, when Mary was working all sorts of hours, there was a time when Paddy was going down to the South side of Dublin so frequently on business that he would simply rent a room there for a week at a stretch. Still being young and energetic, and not so far from the music lessons of his youth, he joined a band there to while away the spare time. Notwithstanding this frivolity, he was canny enough to choose an unassuming instrument and keep a low profile, not even telling his band-mates who he really was. Paddy the jolly lad could dabble in whatever he liked; Patrick McCormack of the famous rolled oats company would have to appear in public as a proper businessman.
He did tell Mary about the band. Years later, when his bassoon was gathering dust in the attic, she found it amusing and slightly vexing that he’d eventually abandoned something he’d once been so keen on. In truth, he simply hadn’t had the time to continue – and his bittersweet memories of the Rathfarnham Concert Band were inextricably linked to his greatest sin of all.