“But you are dating a man who knows what a Catholic marriage is.”
I nodded, bleakly.
“I was, anyway. Up until last weekend.”
She sighed. “Listen, what I am advising you to do is scary. I am telling you to give up your security blanket of sex. It’s a false security blanket. It won’t hold Nick, or any man. The only thing that will hold you two together is grace. But you have a lot to learn, sweetheart. Mostly because I neglected to teach you, for which I am eternally s-sorry.”
I looked up at her. Her eyes had filled with tears. “Oh Mom, don’t,” I said, feeling guilty. “You did the best you could. You always put food on the table. You gave me a home.”
“Y-yes, but because I was so far away from the Faith, I gave you nothing to guide you.”
I considered this for a moment.
“Mom, I know people who went through fancy Catholic schools and they have done some stupid things.”
She nodded, dabbing at her eyes with a Kleenex.
“Y-yes, there’s been a terrible watering-down of the Faith,” she said, looking downcast. “And despite being showered with stuff, your generation has been the victim of so much. No traditions handed down to you. Only money. Or bitterness. Or both.”
Once again, she was right. There wasn’t much I could say. I reached into my handbag to check the time; instead, I pulled out the money clip.
“Do you recognize this?” I said, not daring to breathe.
She looked at me with a knitted brow, and held her palm out. I dropped the money clip in it, and explained.
“Ah,” she said, exhaling. “I haven’t seen this in 20 years.”
“It’s Dad’s, right?”
She nodded. “It was my wedding gift to him. I thought it was a kind of a rakish thing, a masculine thing, to have.”
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “The one thing that poor Melissa has of Dad’s wasn’t even something he bought himself. It was something a woman gave him – and not even her own mom.”
She thought about that for a moment.
“You know, honey,” she said. “I think there’s a whole lot going on here about money. Melissa is chasing love, which she confuses with money. Your dad made it abundantly clear that he was not going to be depended on for money. It’s pretty ironic that all she has from him is an empty money clip.”
I nodded then, thoughtfully.
REGINA | 69