LARK
“Don’t go blamingMargaret for this,” Mom harps over the phone.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I pull up outside of my old apartment and kill the Jeep’s engine. Zoe’s Hyundai is nowhere to be seen, and I’m so grateful, I might actually go to church on Sunday to thank God.
“It’s not her fault you’re in hot water.” Mom carries on like I haven’t even spoken. She’s good at that.
“It’ll grow back. Jeez.”
When I went back to Bear and Maggie’s to get my things, Maggie stormed out of the kitchen and slammed the door of her bedroom like I’d given her son a tattoo. Across his forehead. At least Bear let me know that Mom had called to check in that afternoon and caught Maggie in her crying jag. My sister-in-law spilled everything about me crashing there the last two weeks and the bit about the haircut disaster. Bear’s warning let me know Mom would be calling to bawl me out.
“I’m not talking about my grandbaby’s hair—though I could tan your hide for that one, Lark St. Paul Bienvenue.”
Oh, here we go.
Like most mothers, when Mom invokes the middle name, it’s serious. But unlike most mothers, Mom gave us all Catholic saints as our middle names. So when she’s enacting acome-to-Jesusinjunction, it truly is sanctified. If Judgement Day ever comes in my lifetime, I think it’s safe to say I’ve been well prepared.
“I am talking about you running amok with your eternal soul. What are you doing breaking up with Zoe? You two should be married by now.”
In the last three years, I don’t think I’ve had a conversation with my mother that didn’t include them-word.
“Ma. We’ve been through this. You know—”
“I know that you’ve got a head made of stone and a heart made of wax,” she scolds. “Things get a little hot and it dribbles away.”
I stifle a groan.
“Your heart needs to be strong. Strong enough to be nailed to the Cross.”
I roll my eyes at her metaphor. When she’s really riled up like this, she gets a little theatrical. “Mom, that doesn’t make any—”
“You need to go to confession. First thing in the morning.” She practically spits into the phone. “You need to confess your fornication, your infidelity, your deception, and your faithl—”
“Hold on a minute,” I clap back. “I never cheated on Zoe and I never deceived her.” I’m not about to tell her that I haven’t gone to confession since high school. I’ve only let her think I have. I’m a terrible Catholic. I know it. Bear knows it. Mom knows it.
And she doesn’t let me forget it.
“You have committed adultery in the eyes of the Church for living in sin outside of the sacred vows of marriage, and you cannot tell me that Zoe didn’t believe you would one day propose to her.”
She doesn’t like hearing it—in fact, she often pretends not to hear it—but my mother has heard me saymany timeshow I feel. I say it again.
“I told Zoe a hundred times I’d never get married—just like I’ve told you. I just don’t believe in marriage.”
When she speaks, I can picture the look on her face, her crow’s feet deepening around her eyes as she scowls at me. “That’s nonsense. That’s like saying you don’t believe in blue.”
“Mmm, no it’s not.”
“Of course it is. Your father and I have been married for twenty-five years. You were born and raised in our marriage. Just like you were born and raised in our house. How can you say you don’t believe in marriage?
“It’s a social construct, not a physical one,” I argue, knowing it will do absolutely no good.
“It’s a sacrament is what it is.”
“It’s a patriarchal construct that inherently restricts people—mostly women—and ends in divorce half the time.”
She’s been hearing me say this since I was a teenager, and it always gives her fits. When I confessed once to Bear that I wasn’t even sure I believed in monogamy, he made me swear I’d never say as much to Mom.
But it’s true. Monogamy isn’t a biological or moral imperative. It’s a social standard, and not even a universal one.
