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Not sure what this had to do with going to Mass, Vivian kept her mouth shut and waited for Susan to finish her thought. “So I guess my answer to your question is that I’d rather Karl be happy than his wife be Catholic. And I expect that between the two of you, you’ll raise my grandbaby to be a responsible citizen.”
Vivian wasn’t sure if parental values were a perfect indicator of a child’s values. If they were, she would’ve cheated when her father asked her to, the cheating wouldn’t have bothered her, she wouldn’t have gone to the bar to drink herself forgetful, she wouldn’t have met Karl and she wouldn’t be in Susan’s kitchen right now, stuffing a basket full with symbolic food.
But the present didn’t seem like the time to mention any of this to Susan.
“I’d like my grandbabies to be raised Catholic. I hope there will be many of them and that I live long enough to see their First Communion s. However, one grandchild has already been raised Lutheran and I survived that.” Susan must be referring to the child Renia gave up for adoption in her teens. “And Maria is still my favorite sister, Buddhism and all.”
So the answer was that her daughter-in-law not being Catholic bothered Susan, but not enough for her to say anything, and she was respectful enough of their relationship not to pressure Vivian. They packed the basket with a few other foods, and Susan continued to tell Vivian the meaning of each item they added. Only when Susan was covering the basket with linen did Vivian realize their previous conversation wasn’t yet over.
“What I really want,” Susan said, “is for family traditions to continue. I think it’s important for children to know that their great-grandparents also made eggs on Easter for the priest to bless and that they have a connection to those long-dead family members.”
“Back in the old country.”
Though Vivian said the words with a smile, so Susan would know she meant them kindly, she needn’t have worried. Susan just laughed and said, “Yes, back in the old country. Learning Pawel and I shared some of the same traditions that first Easter we were married—even though my family has been in the U.S. since before the Revolutionary War and his parents were new immigrants—made me feel like it was meant to be. You see, I’d made a rash decision and was looking for signs I’d made the right one.”
That search for signs was familiar. Vivian had felt the same way the first night in Karl’s apartment when she’d woken up to a cup of coffee. Her coffee had been cold, but the gesture was unmistakable. “Karl speaks about you and his father as if you were a perfect love story.”
“I saw Pawel at Healthy Food and knew he was going to be my husband. Even still, the two of us spent many years, with young children in tow, figuring out what being husband and wife meant. Karl probably isn’t too young to remember those days, but he wouldn’t focus on them. He idealizes Pawel.”
Susan patted the basket. “Traditions adapt, as they should, for each generation. I hope you and Karl will keep them up after I am dead, even if you have to change them a little to fit whatever future I could never imagine.”
Vivian stopped herself before responding with, “You’re too young to be talking like that.” Susan was only a month away from a heart attack. Her mortality probably still weighed heavily on her mind, even if the doctors said she was doing everything she needed to do in order to see another twenty years and more grandchildren.
Instead, she promised her mother-in-law they would continue the traditions so their children would know their history. The promise was easy to make. Vivian had grown up with few traditions, though her father talked about some he had been raised with. As it had just been the two of them, they had always gone to the fanciest hotel in whatever town they were in for Thanksgiving, and they’d exchanged presents at Christmas, though, as she got older, Vivian had begun to suspect some of the presents were ill-gotten. When she was a teenager, her father had put money into her college fund for Christmas and her birthday.
What was harder for Vivian to promise was that she and Karl would teach their child these traditions. The and part of that promise was still up in the air.
