“You were offering him something he could get from any woman – sex for commitment, the ‘hidden expectations’ he talked about. Then he talked about how modern relationships were ‘thin’ and he wanted something more. What did he want?”
“Oh Jeez, I don’t know. Something about ‘sacramental’.”
“Right. The sacrament of marriage.”
I sighed impatiently. “Mom, marriage is a contract that says you agree to have sex and live together and maybe have kids.”
She shook her head.
“No. That is not the Catholic understanding of marriage. For Catholics, it is a sacrament, like baptism. Once it is conferred, it cannot go away, any more than you can get un-baptized.”
I looked at her in astonishment.
“B-But you can’t believe that? You and Dad were married in a Catholic Church, right? You got divorced!”
“Yes,” she nodded, sadly. “I got a civil divorce, but I never got an annulment, until recently.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, nodding. “And I have to say I wish I had done this years and years ago. My life might have turned out differently. Yours, too.”
“W-What?”
“Getting an annulment was the best thing I ever did for myself. It helped me understand that your dad was never capable of entering into a Catholic marriage, as he has since proven to anyone who’s ever known him.”
“So, you got an annulment on the grounds that he was incapable of marriage?”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re free to marry again?”
“Yes, but now that I really, really know what a marriage is supposed to be, it’s changed my whole way of thinking. As you notice, there’s no man in my life these days.”
“R-right,” I said uncertainly.
“How could I date a man now who had no idea of what a marriage was? There would be no point to it.”
I had to admit she was right.
“You were offering him something he could get from any woman – sex for commitment, the ‘hidden expectations’ he talked about."
REGINA | 68
REGINA Fiction