Page 49 of My Dead Wife's Ex Will Do
“First of all, I’ve been ordained as a minister with the Universal Life Church for decades, so I didn’t do it just for you.” I haven’t done as many weddings since marriage equality became legal in all fifty states, but I became a minister back in the days when my friends found it hard to find an officiant who was willing to perform same-sex weddings. “And second, I thought you told your dad about this, Kels.”
I’m surprised she hasn’t. It’s unfair to spring something like this on Jason, and I’m a little annoyed at myself for not catching before now that he might find me officiating a wedding disrespectful of his faith.
“Well, it’s not like we could call the local parish priest to marry us,” Kelsey protests. “You knew this was going to be a civil wedding, Dad. We have to have a Costa Rican notary present to make it legal, but we didn’t want to say our vows before a total stranger.”
“Yes, but…” Jason starts.
He closes his mouth, though, and looks down at the ground for a moment. I give Kelsey a look. She has that mulish, closed-off expression she gets sometimes when she’s done something she’s not proud of but she isn’t ready to admit it. I hope she gets ready soon, because her special week or not, I’m getting a little tired of her attitude.
It’s not unlike an expression I’ve seen on Jason’s face a handful of times before, even though she couldn’t have inherited it from him.
Adrienne steps forward. “The coordinator has a quick question for us, Jason. We’ll be right back, okay?”
She pulls Kelsey away without waiting for Jason to respond. I think she’s just giving Jason a minute to recover, because when they stop on the other side of the room, Luz is nowhere in sight and Adrienne’s leaning toward Kelsey, speaking to the top of Kelsey’s bowed head.
“Hey, um,” I start. “I’m sure Kelsey didn’t mean?—”
“It’s fine,” Jason says. He’s still looking at the ground and his jaw is tight, his lips in a thin line. “She’s right, of course. She can’t marry Adrienne in the Church the way her mother and I did. The Church won’t allow that.”
He lifts his head and I take a step back. I’ve never seen such blazing anger on his face before. “Her relationship is a sin. Her very existence is barely tolerated, and only if she rejects the person she loves and who loves her. Same with Logan and Silas—a couple who so clearly love each other and want to be together—their relationship is not permitted in the Church.
“You and I,” he jabs a finger at my chest. “What we’ve done together here—when there’s finally no one I’m betraying—that’s also sinful. As much a sin as what we did that first night together. A sin that I’m reminded of every blessed Sunday when I attend Mass and take communion. Where I lead the choir and congregation in songs that praise God and the Virgin and all the saints and are about faith and community and love, but only the right kind of love, and only for people who are willing to be in a community that refuses to accept their whole being.”
He stops speaking and drags a hand down his face. His hand trembles and his chest heaves in panting breaths. I step forward and lay a hand on his shoulder. “Jason,” I say helplessly. I don’t know what the right words are here.
He takes a blind step forward into my chest and I wrap my arms around him. He tucks his face in my shoulder. I’m not sure whether he’s crying or shaking with anger.
“I didn’t expect it to be this hard,” he says, the words muffled against my shirt.
“What’s hard?” I ask.
He lifts his head and hooks his chin over my shoulder. “Watching my daughter marry the person she loves and knowing she’s shut out from the history and tradition of a Catholic wedding, solely because she fell in love with a woman.”
“She might not have elected to marry in the Church even if she were marrying a man,” I tell him. To be honest, I seriously doubt she would have.
“I know that,” he says. “But that choice was never hers, and that’s what I’m angry about. That, and the Church’s general hostility to gay people. I’ve never been proud of that, but since Kelsey came out, it’s been weighing on me more and more.” He heaves a sigh big enough that I can feel his chest lift and settle in my embrace. “And now…”
“Yeah,” I say. “Now you can no longer pretend it’s not about you, too.”
He goes absolutely silent and still, and for a moment, I worry I’ve gone too far, said something I can’t take back.
Then he turns his face into my neck and breathes out. His breath is warm and his lips graze my skin. “Yeah. That’s it.” He lets go of me and steps back, avoiding looking directly at me. “I know it makes me a hypocrite.”
I catch his hand and tug on it to keep him close. “No, Jason. I know how important your faith is to you. It’s really hard to feel torn between that and the people you love.”
“Shouldn’t I love my daughter more?”
“Don’t you?” I ask him. “You’re here as a part of her wedding, aren’t you? You unequivocally accepted Kelsey when she came out to you. You’ve never been anything less than welcoming and loving toward Adrienne.”
He snorts. “Is that the bar? I didn’t disown my daughter or refuse to acknowledge her relationship and that’s what makes me a good father?”
I don’t think Jason appreciates what a leap that can be for some people. But this isn’t about my shitty parents. “You are a good father, Jason, and a kind and wonderful man, and you’re not responsible for the position the Catholic Church takes on social issues.”
“I could leave the Church. If its positions are so anathema to my own values and my own vision of God, why do I stay?”
“You could leave,” I agree. “But you must get something out of it or you would have left before now.”
An errant breeze lifts a strand of his hair and blows it across his face. My fingers itch to brush it away, but he drops my hand and does it himself.
