My nerves were on high alert. The previous night at the rehearsal dinner it all still seemed pretend. But now in the gray light before sunrise there was no more denying reality. My gut, quite literally, was telling me so. This was really happening. At the age of thirty-two, I was at last kissing my bachelorhood good-bye. In seven hours I would be a married man, and I was not too proud to admit the prospect terrified me. I pulled myself out of bed, slipped into
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my running shoes, and took a jog around Harbor Hills and Saint Mary’s College. Then I picked up my tuxedo, stopped for a haircut and beard trim, and set up tables in the backyard for a champagne toast and receiving line that would take place between the wedding and reception.
It was just about time to shower and dress when Mom said,
“You really should eat something. If there’s any day you need to keep up your strength, it’s today. Let me make you a sandwich.”
I had no appetite, but I knew she was right. I wouldn’t make it through the long day ahead without nourishment.
A few minutes later, she brought out a sandwich on toast and I took a bite. “What is this?” I asked.
“Liverwurst and onions,” she said.
It occurred to me that eating liverwurst and onions just before kissing my bride for the first time as man and wife might not be the wisest move.
“Do you think this is a good idea, Mom?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be? You love liverwurst and onions.”
I pulled back the bread and studied the interior. Fat, thick rings of white onion, raw and pungent, towered above the liver spread. They were so strong, my eyes watered just looking at them. The sandwich might as well have had the words DEATH
BREATH branded across it. Why I didn’t push it aside or at least remove the onions, I can’t say. Instead I took bite after bite, washing it down with a glass of milk.
Only after my plate was empty did the slow, odorous burn begin to pulsate through my mouth. As I showered, it radiated off my tongue and lips like a radioactive experiment gone wrong.
I brushed my teeth, once, twice, three times, then gargled with mouthwash. None of it made a dent. I ran to the kitchen and made a poultice of white bread soaked in milk, plastering it between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I brushed some more, swished another swig of Listerine, then puffed into my cupped hands. My eyes blinked hard. I didn’t just reek. I was toxic.
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By the time I was huddled in the back of the church with my brothers, who were serving as co–best men, it was obvious that moms are not always right, and that two hundred guests were all too soon going to realize that as well. Tim and Mike, standing about four feet from me, sniffed in unison. It was Tim who spoke.
“Don’t tell me you let Mom feed you one of those liverwurst sandwiches,” he said.
“What makes you say that?” I asked and popped another breath mint.
Jenny later told me my liver-and-onion breath hit her when she was still several feet down the aisle. Her father, on whose arm she walked, confirmed that she was not exaggerating. I wouldn’t have blamed her had she turned and run for the parking lot.
Despite the vapors rising off me, Jenny answered “I do” to all the salient questions. When it was my turn, I did my best to repeat my vows without once exhaling. It was really quite a feat, even if it did make me sound remarkably like Darth Vader.
Jenny . . . I . . . am . . . your . . . husband.
And then it was over. A full wedding Mass would have
stretched an hour or more, but we were in and out in fifteen minutes. I silently thanked Mom and Dad for that. Before we exchanged vows, Father Vin gave a short homily in which he reminded us that we weren’t really marrying each other; we were both marrying our Lord Jesus Christ. He left out the part about the wedding night.
Late that night after the band had packed up and all the guests had gone home, Jenny and I checked into a Holiday Inn a few miles from Harbor Hills. With the exception of my onion breath, which, with the help of a barrage of gum and mints, had dissipated about halfway through the receiving line, the entire day had gone off without a hitch. I could laugh now at Little Napoleon’s sandwich choice and the idea that, whether consciously or not, she was making one final attempt to derail a marriage she was convinced was doomed by virtue of its sinful prelude.
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Both she and my father had been perfect hosts, graciously greeting guests, welcoming Jenny’s family, and opening their home for both the rehearsal dinner the previous night and the champagne reception. They gave no hint to anyone of the pain that preceded the day.
The hotel room was unspectacular, but it was ours and ours alone. Just us and Jesus.
“We did it,” Jenny said as she let her wedding dress fall to the floor.
“You’re stuck with me now,” I said, and we collapsed on the bed together, at once exhausted and exhilarated, and made love for the first time as husband and wife.
The next morning, Jenny and I boarded an express train to Toronto, where we spent a blissful week honeymooning. Our plan was to return to my parents’ house, spend the night, then leave early the next morning for the long drive back to South Florida.
This would be our first time staying at the house as a married couple and, now that we sported wedding bands, the first time Mom and Dad would no longer insist we sleep in separate rooms.
I assumed we would commandeer the foldout couch in the basement, but when we arrived home at the end of the week, Mom had other plans.
“I’m putting you in our room,” she announced.
“Oh, we couldn’t do that, Ruth,” Jenny said. “The couch will be just great.”
“Nonsense,” she replied. “You’ll be much more comfortable.”
“That’s so nice, Ruth,” Jenny said. “But the couch is great.”
“I won’t hear of it,” Mom said. “This way you’ll have your privacy.” And from the way my mother said it—a slight, barely noticeable rise of the eyebrows—I could tell what she was thinking—and it was grandchildren. I glanced at Jenny and knew her skin had begun to crawl.
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“Thank you, Ruth, it’s very kind, but really,” Jenny said in her firmest, no-nonsense voice, “I’d prefer the basement.”
“Absolutely not,” Mom shot back. “The room’s all set for you.”
“No, really, I insist,” Jenny said.
“No,” Mom said in a way that made clear she had no intention of backing down, “I insist.”
Dad and I locked eyes, and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing: this was between the two women, and only a fool would get between them. It would be their first battle of wills as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The first of many to come.
“Ruth,” Jenny said, her voice tensing as she carefully enunci-ated each word, “I do not want to sleep in your room.”
“I have it all set up for you,” Mom retorted. “Let me show it to you.”
And then we were upstairs standing in their bedroom, and I understood why my mother had been so adamant. She had been busy converting it into a romantic honeymoon suite. Fresh flowers stood in a vase on the bedstand. Two sets of her best towels waited on the bed. The covers were turned down, exposing floral sheets she had taken the time to iron. And on the pillow sat two foil-wrapped chocolates. It was just like what Father Beady Eyes had said. Now that we were married, my mother had abandoned her crusade against sexual relations and was now anxious to help facilitate a pregnancy. I could see the color running out of Jenny’s face. Her fight-or-flight instinct was kicking in and I sensed she was looking for the nearest door to bolt through.
“This bed has always been,” Mom began, and I contemplated leaping across the room, knocking her to the floor, and cupping my hand over her mouth— No, Mom, don’t say it. Please, Mom, don’t—“very lucky for your father and
me.”
Oh no, she said it. Jenny was now beyond gray. She looked like she’d entered a catatonic state. I imagined she was repeating in her head, This is not happening to me. This cannot be happening. She stood perfectly still, not saying a word.
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“Great, Mom, thanks,” I said. “Fantastic. This will be terrific.
We’ll get unpacked now.” I nudged her out of the room and closed the door. Then I looked around. In Mom’s effort to create a romantic boudoir, she had failed to consider the many religious artifacts in the room and the effect they might have on the libidos of others less devout. On one wall was a framed portrait of the Pope staring benevolently at the bed. On another was a wooden crucifix showing Christ in the agony of death, blood trickling down his face and side. I counted three statues of the Virgin Mary, one of them nearly life-size, and another of Saint Francis. A bottle of mail-order holy water was on the windowsill. My mother’s Bible sat on one bedstand, my father’s prayer book on the other.
And hanging from the headboard was the pièce de résistance—
an oversize rosary that looked like it had been special ordered for Paul Bunyan. It was a good four feet long, and each wooden bead was the size of a walnut, strung together on a heavy chain.
I plopped down on the bed, and the giant beads clanked loudly against the frame.
“It’s not so bad,” I said to Jenny. She just stood in silence. “It’s only for one night. C’mon, honey, it’s fine. Isn’t it fine?” And then:
“She means well. She’s trying.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Father Vin would also be spending the night, and would be in my old room, immediately on the other side of the wall, his headboard inches from our own. Nor that Mom and Dad would be on the sleeper sofa immediately below us.
“We’ll just have to be quiet,” I offered helpfully.
Jenny at last spoke: “Don’t touch me tonight.”
“Oh, come on. Relax. It’s just a room.” And for me, it was. I had grown up with these Catholic adornments and barely noticed them.
“I mean it,” she said. “You will not touch me.”
That night after dinner when we retired for the night, Jenny still had not relaxed. Sex had become such a powder-keg issue between her and my parents, I guess I couldn’t blame her. Before
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marriage, sex had been our downfall, our dirty little secret that had brought shame to the family name. Now we were supposed to embrace it with vigor in their bed with the saints and angels and Pope watching—and my uncle the priest inches away on the other side of the wall. She slid into the king-size bed and hugged the edge of the mattress as though she were expecting six or seven others to join us. I crawled in from the other side and slid up against her, draping one leg over hers. “Do not touch me,” she repeated in a way that told me not to push my luck.
Despite that, I thought a little levity could only help ease the tension. I sat up on my side of the bed and began to rock. Slowly at first, then with increasing vigor. Pretty soon the bed frame was creaking, the springs squeaking. Then the giant rosary beads began to knock against the headboard. Clank, clank, clank. Even Jenny would have to admit this was funny. Here we were, freshly minted newlyweds in my parents’ very Catholic bed, not having sex but making noises that would make it sound like we were.
Hilarious! At any moment I fully expected Jenny to burst out laughing.
Suffice it to say, Jenny did not burst out laughing. She did not grin or smile or even nod. What she did was leap out of bed so quickly I thought for a moment that my mother might have left hot coals in the sheets. I then spent the next hour trying to convince my bride that walking back to Florida in the middle of the night was not practical. I eventually coaxed her back into my parents’ bed, where we slept with four feet of empty mattress between us and nary a squeak or creak heard all night.
The next morning, after hurried good-byes, we began our trip south, the backseat and trunk filled with wedding gifts. We were nearly to Georgia before Jenny found it in her heart to forgive me, not only for the simulated sex sounds but, more important, for failing to take her side against my mother. I promised her then and there that she would never again have to sleep in my parents’ bed.
Chapter 23
o
We were barely back in Florida as husband and wife
when we began shopping for a house to call our
own. Our rental place had its charm, but some-
thing felt different now, and we ached to put down roots. With marriage came a sense of security and permanence we both found reassuring. Jenny and I had insisted we did not need a marriage certificate to be fully committed to each other, that the wedding was just a formality, but we were both surprised at how much marriage changed our dynamic. For the first time since meeting, we each knew the other wasn’t going anywhere. No one would be running off alone for the next job opportunity or fellowship. This was our life now, a life together. The prospect of cosigning away thirty years of it to a bank mortgage no longer felt terrifying.
Just one block away on a much prettier street, we found a small bungalow for sale. Unlike our rental house, it was meticulously kept, with a lush lawn surrounded by exotic tropical plantings. Jenny gasped aloud when we spotted it on our evening walk. “It’s perfect,” she said before even getting a peek inside.
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“The green paint has to go, but otherwise it’s just right.”
Several weeks later, we walked out of a bank office with the deed and the keys to the front door—and headed straight to our new address: 345 Churchill Road. As soon as we were in the driveway, Jenny jumped out of the car and bolted for the door, key in hand.
“No, no! Wait! Don’t go in! Wait for me!” I shouted after her.
I wanted to do this right. I caught up with her on the porch, took the key from her, turned it in the lock, and swung the door open.
Then, without a word of warning, I scooped Jenny into my arms and lifted her off her feet. She let out a surprised, joyful whoop.
“You goof!” she said, throwing her arms around my neck.
“What are you doing?”
“Here we go,” I announced. “Our first step into our very own home. Our new life.” And with that I carried her across the threshold. We paused there for a moment just inside the entrance, silently reveling.
“Now put me down,” Jenny said, “before you hurt yourself.”
As the months passed, we turned the little bungalow into our own, repainting the walls, hanging Haitian artwork, and lifting the shag carpeting to discover burnished oak floors beneath. We planted a garden and brought home a behaviorally challenged Labrador retriever puppy we named Marley, who quickly wiggled his way into our hearts despite causing all sorts of havoc on a daily basis. Outside our bedroom window were a gardenia bush and a giant Brazilian pepper tree where wild parrots roosted, and each morning we awoke to the flowers’ scent and the birds’ chatter. Life seemed about as good as life could get.
Yet the strain with my parents remained. I had assumed all the bad blood that had preceded the marriage would wash away with the Catholic ceremony, but the wounds ran deep. Jenny had not gotten over how judgmental they had been, especially my mother’s emotional prediction that our marriage was doomed to failure. In their moral certitude, she saw smugness and superi-
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ority and an implicit belief that she was somehow inferior, not quite the good Catholic wife they had prayed for their son to find.
She was convinced they blamed her for pulling me away from the faith. “In their eyes, I’m your downfall,” she said more than once.
My parents were hurt, too. Hurt by my belated honesty. Hurt by our rejection of their values. Hurt by Jenny’s barely concealed contempt for everything they believed and by my acquiescence in that contempt. My parents’ medieval interpretation o
f Catholicism, with its literal belief in guardian angels hovering over our shoulders to protect us from the dark agents of Satan, struck both of us as almost comically superstitious. The difference was that I had grown up with it and took it all in stride. Jenny, on the other hand, was unable to hide how bizarre she found it all.
To her it was all hocus-pocus, no different from tossing salt over one’s shoulder for good luck. She met their various expressions of faith with a sort of bemused bewilderment, usually accompanied by a grimacing cringe, which I knew my parents interpreted as mocking. In their eyes, her discomfort was disrespect.
On one of Jenny’s first visits to my parents’ house, shortly after we began dating, Mom cornered her in the kitchen and pulled from her apron pocket a small glass bottle with a hand-printed label. Oh no, I thought, she’s got the holy water. I watched as she uncorked the bottle and moved closer to Jenny. Put it away, Mom.
Put it back in your apron. You barely know this girl yet. Without a word of explanation, Mom wetted her thumb with the contents and made the sign of the cross on Jenny’s forehead as she murmured, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Dad looked on approvingly. As with most things they did, the act was well-intentioned. They wanted to bless this potential new member of our family and ensure that the Lord smiled on our new relationship. Jenny could not have looked more shocked had my mother clicked her heels and flown off on a broomstick.
“It’s just something old-fashioned Catholics do,” I told her later, but that moment set the tone for many more to come.
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Those days were far behind us now. With the help of my strong-willed wife, I had finally broken free from my parents’ influence. I no longer felt the need to lie or obfuscate. I was unapologetically my own person now, officially in the category known as “non-practicing Catholic.” But this freedom came at a cost. It was as though a wall of bulletproof glass had risen between my parents and me. I could still see and hear them through it, but it wasn’t the same. We avoided religion, politics, and social issues such as abortion and gay rights—any hot-button topic that would expose the gaping rift in our values. They didn’t ask; I didn’t tell. They no longer gushed about the latest prayer hour they had organized at church, or inquired of me about Sunday Mass. Their faith and my lack of it had become our taboo topic. As it hovered over us, suffocating the relationship, we all pretended it did not exist.