Considered now, especially in light of the way that Teresa became my wife’s aggressive mentor in pro-life activism – and the way she was vehement about how everyone who worked in what she called ‘the abortion industry’ was ‘nothing less than a murderer’ – I couldn’t help but agree with my daughter: I tend to soft-pedal my true feelings about anyone difficult. And Teresa was certainly difficult. Still, as a gesture of marital goodwill, I agreed to go with Agnieska to her house. A place furnished with deep pile carpets, cream-colored leather furniture, gold taps in the bathrooms, not to mention all the crucifixes and sacred heart lamps and framed pictures of the Apostles that decorated her walls. There were about nine other people at this post-Mass lunch. Teresa greeted me with a dismissive nod of the head and the comment:

‘Well, the dead do walk and eventually come to their spiritual senses. Welcome to the Fight.’

I was the only guy in the room. I didn’t last long. Because, after making small talk around the buffet of chicken parts and pasta and tuna salads and green beans, Teresa began to address the crowd. Telling them that her overnight ‘imprisonment’ with her ‘sister of the cross’, Agnieska, hadn’t intimidated her. Rather it had ingrained in her the belief that hers was ‘the right crusade against the forces of progressive evil who think nothing about infiltrating the minds of our young girls with the belief that “My Body, My Choice” is a credo they can believe in’. Just as she also said: ‘Thank God that we now have a Supreme Court who will soon consign Roe v Wade to the compost heap of history, and who will hopefully rule against state funding for wicked organizations like Planned Parenthood – groups determined to ruin the lives of a whole new generation of young women’.

There was huge applause for this outburst that coincided with Agnieska suddenly kneeling down and saying a decade of the rosary. I started moving toward the door, thinking that a fast escape was called for. But before I edged out Teresa was back center stage, shouting at everyone present and the larger world beyond: