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“Decca?” Dad asked quietly.
“How did you—?”
“I’m not blind, son. I’ve seen you together. But why do you look so miserable? You have the same face as that time you bottomed-out the hearse and tried to break the news to us gently.”
“Seriously, neither one of you has any pushback? Maybe I should have told Ma first.”
“Your Ma will be happy to see you settled. She likes Decca.”
My eyes shot to him. Was he having a stroke?
He turned the corner of his mouth up in a small smile. Then we both burst out laughing. The thought of Ma liking any woman who’d marry one of her beloved sons was unthinkable.
At least Dad had lightened the mood. I spun the beer glass on the table, watching the condensation drip. “She proposed. I don’t even know if she meant it as a business transaction or a real marriage. I know she’s doing me a favor, so I can become ordained as a married priest. I’d be an idiot not to take her up on her offer. She’s giving me everything I wanted, giving up her own chance at happiness in the process. I don’t think I can go through with it.”
“That’s bullshit. Excuse my language, Father,” Dad said.
Vasili shrugged.
“Should I start from the top? Because I didn’t raise my son to think that poorly of himself. I’ve seen the way her eyes go all soft whenever you’re in the room. She’s not marrying you as a favor. Unless it’s a favor for herself.”
I could lie to myself and maintain the myth that I hadn’t noticed the way she cleverly guarded her flirtations so she wouldn’t be obvious. She did things. Un-Decca-like things, like playing with her hair and touching my arm when we found common ground in our arguments—which was more frequently than not.
I noticed those things because I did them, too. I flirted back. Whatever room she was in felt ten degrees hotter. My fingersfound ways to connect with her, reaching out, searching and desiring more than just a friendship. For as long as I’d known her.
I came in my fucking pants after she starred in my wet dream.
But it was just a crush, right? And crushes probably didn’t have a great conversion rate into marriages.
“But you love her?” asked Vasili. “You shouldn’t marry without some kind of love.”
Dad looked at me, curious to know the answer as well.
“I... yes. She’s my friend and a creation of God.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Vasili’s eyes turned shrewd. “You’re called to love those men at the table next to us, even though they keep making lewd comments about the waitress whenever she leaves. You’re called to love the kitchen staff you’ve never even seen. But that doesn’t mean you marry them. And before you ask, I’m not asking if it’s passion you’re feeling.”
Say yes.Say yes,you idiot. Even if you don’t know why it’s true, you know it is. Just be done with this. Sure, it’s too good to be true. The woman youdefinitelylove as a friend andcould easilylove with more than a burning, fiery passion threw herself at your mercy so that you could have the whole shebang, the family and the priesthood. And her. Just stop dithering. Stop second-guessing and be honest. Yes, you love her.
“It could grow into love. For sure. One day.”
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a liar.
“Is she Greek?”
Vasili really meant is she Orthodox? It would have been equally suitable for me to marry a Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, or hell, even a Southern Baptist... as long as she was willing to fulfill her role as presvytera, which... was a big gaping hole in the plot.
Decca enjoyed attending church with me. She was a very spiritual person who sought answers and wasn’t afraid of hard insightinto her own assumptions and understandings. But that didn’t mean she was looking to convert. Or get rid of her witchy practices—not that I wanted her to. We were both personally convinced that her witchiness and my Orthodoxy were compatible, but the church wouldn’t see it that way.
I didn’t feel the need to bring that up to my spiritual father right now.
“Not Greek.” I stuck with the safe answer for now.
“Our wedding ceremony prays that God will yoke you in the oneness of mind and crown you in one flesh. Romantic love, eros, fades and re-blooms periodically with the seasons, but the oneness of mind, that’s a thing that is very difficult to cultivate. It’s the only absolute. The only thing that is fixed.”
He was right. I’d seen that in his own marriage before his presvytera had died.
That was why I’d said yes in the first place. I barely even needed to consider that Decca and I were of one mind. I knew we were.
