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“There’s a lot to unpack in that suitcase.”
“Well, you say you’re up for being my wife. Start unpacking.”
She looked confused. Angry. “What makes you think I’m that callous when it comes to seven millennia of tradition—that we know of—and globally and historically recognized social customs? Why would you think I’d be that callous when it comes to you? You think just because I don’t subscribe to any one religious dogma, Idon’t take marriage seriously? You think I planned to marry you and if it doesn’t work out, we divorce a year later? I didn’t propose a hand fasting and, trust me, I’m educated enough to know the difference.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know,” she snapped. The reflection of the moon in her eyes added to the bite of her words. But it was the bite of a kitten. Tiny needle kitten teeth, so cute they almost didn’t hurt.
She deflated, sighing and swiping her bangs out of her face. “I don’t know the first thing about marriage. I’ve never even been in love, so I’ve never considered what I might want out of a marriage. It’s fun to think about this as an anthropological experiment, but there’s got to be something deeper here we’re not touching on.”
“You want more than a list of rules. Not who gets the bathroom first, but—”
“I want the rules of love.” She looked at me. Silence hung in the air as we locked eyes. Neither of us spoke for several seconds. “I want to love you, Gus. I want you to love me. But I don’t know what that means.”
Her words hit me in the chest like a hockey check. Until now, we’d been skating along, passing the puck, and playing our positions. Then wham! A hit to center mass. A solid granite block of truth had knocked the wind out of me, jerking me backward off my feet and onto my ass.
Decca took a sip of wine and stared into her glass, probably just to give herself something to do while I recovered.
The hardest part was, I wanted the same thing.
Iwantedto love her and earn her love. To see if anything had changed in the last decade I’d spent praying and learning.
It was selfish to say yes, but that’s what had motivated me. Not the promise of sex. Not so I could have someoneto share meals with, and talk through an annual re-watch of the Lord of the Rings movies. I wanted to share life with her. All of life. The messy and the wonderful. She just happened to be the one brave enough to say it out loud first.
“I’m sorry if that’s not—”
“Thatiswhat I want.“ I didn’t wait another second to reassure her she wasn’t alone in this. Not alone with the manic hopes or thewe should probably know betters.“So, let’s sketch out what love looks like for us. I mean, we’ll probably get it all wrong in the beginning. But we need something to start with. A path.”
She shook her head. “A skeleton.” Her eyes looked warm with love already.
“Bones.” I nodded. “The bones of love. I’m willing to dig, if you are.”
Gus, The Sacrament of Marriage
“This could be thesmartest thing I’ve ever done, or it could be the dumbest.”
My shoes clicked on the marble as I paced the tiny room behind the altar. Packed as it was with racks of hanging vestments in various shades of metallic brocade, the footed brassprosforobowls, and bookcases covered in a hodgepodge of crap—everything from extra reams of copy paper (there wasn’t even a printer in this building) to cases of Pepsi and vials of holy water—the space wasn’t big enough to do anything more than spin in a circle.
“It’s certainly not the dumbest.” My brother’s deep voice dripped with acid as he raised his eyebrow, giving me a pointed look one could only read as:remember that time I found you balls deep in my ex-wife?
George looked effortlessly cool leaning back against an abandoned desk with his feet crossed at the ankles and his brow all sardonic.
It had been years since we’d both been back here together, when we’d served behind the altar as boys, dying of thirst andhunger, drooling over… probably that same case of Pepsi, because we weren’t allowed to drink or eat before receiving communion on Sunday mornings.
“You’re right. Momentary lapse.” I stopped pacing. “I try not to actively remember my piece of shit era.”
“You were never a piece of shit. You made some bad choices. This isn’t one of them.” He nodded in the general direction of the nave where, if she hadn’t come to her senses, Decca would be walking up the aisle in a few moments.
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I can feel it.”
I rubbed my hands down my face and scraped at my beard before smoothing my hair away from my face.
I wasn’t so sure he was right. But I could feel him feel it, and it stopped me in my tracks.
A year ago, my grumpy mortician brother wouldn’t have recognized a feeling if it hit him over the head. Then Bethany came along and violently beat down the walls surrounding George’s heart, forcing him to finally accept the same care and compassion he gave his grieving clients.
