Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Victor
There’s another group hike on Thursday and then we have a brief, informal rehearsal of the wedding in the late afternoon.
There’s not much to actually rehearse but we talk through who will stand where and where the guests will sit.
Mostly through Luz, the resort’s wedding coordinator, since Kelsey is still barely talking to us.
And this is apparently the first time Jason learns that I’ll be officiating the wedding.
“You what?” His mouth drops open and he looks truly shocked.
“Daddy got ‘ordained’ through one of those internet churches so that he can marry us.” She uses those finger quotes again and Jason’s brows draw together.
“First of all, I’ve been ordained as a minister with the Universal Life Church for decades, so I didn’t do it just for you.
” I haven’t done as many weddings since marriage equality became legal in all fifty states, but I became a minister back in the days when my friends found it hard to find an officiant who was willing to perform same-sex weddings.
“And second, I thought you told your dad about this, Kels.”
I’m surprised she hasn’t. It’s unfair to spring something like this on Jason, and I’m a little annoyed at myself for not catching before now that he might find me officiating a wedding disrespectful of his faith.
“Well, it’s not like we could call the local parish priest to marry us,” Kelsey protests. “You knew this was going to be a civil wedding, Dad. We have to have a Costa Rican notary present to make it legal, but we didn’t want to say our vows before a total stranger.”
“Yes, but…” Jason starts.
He closes his mouth, though, and looks down at the ground for a moment.
I give Kelsey a look. She has that mulish, closed-off expression she gets sometimes when she’s done something she’s not proud of but she isn’t ready to admit it.
I hope she gets ready soon, because her special week or not, I’m getting a little tired of her attitude.
It’s not unlike an expression I’ve seen on Jason’s face a handful of times before, even though she couldn’t have inherited it from him.
Adrienne steps forward. “The coordinator has a quick question for us, Jason. We’ll be right back, okay?”
She pulls Kelsey away without waiting for Jason to respond. I think she’s just giving Jason a minute to recover, because when they stop on the other side of the room, Luz is nowhere in sight and Adrienne’s leaning toward Kelsey, speaking to the top of Kelsey’s bowed head.
“Hey, um,” I start. “I’m sure Kelsey didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” Jason says. He’s still looking at the ground and his jaw is tight, his lips in a thin line. “She’s right, of course. She can’t marry Adrienne in the Church the way her mother and I did. The Church won’t allow that.”
He lifts his head and I take a step back.
I’ve never seen such blazing anger on his face before.
“Her relationship is a sin. Her very existence is barely tolerated, and only if she rejects the person she loves and who loves her.
Same with Logan and Silas—a couple who so clearly love each other and want to be together—their relationship is not permitted in the Church.
“You and I,” he jabs a finger at my chest. “What we’ve done together here—when there’s finally no one I’m betraying—that’s also sinful.
As much a sin as what we did that first night together.
A sin that I’m reminded of every blessed Sunday when I attend Mass and take communion.
Where I lead the choir and congregation in songs that praise God and the Virgin and all the saints and are about faith and community and love, but only the right kind of love, and only for people who are willing to be in a community that refuses to accept their whole being. ”
He stops speaking and drags a hand down his face. His hand trembles and his chest heaves in panting breaths. I step forward and lay a hand on his shoulder. “Jason,” I say helplessly. I don’t know what the right words are here.
He takes a blind step forward into my chest and I wrap my arms around him. He tucks his face in my shoulder. I’m not sure whether he’s crying or shaking with anger.
“I didn’t expect it to be this hard,” he says, the words muffled against my shirt.
“What’s hard?” I ask.
He lifts his head and hooks his chin over my shoulder. “Watching my daughter marry the person she loves and knowing she’s shut out from the history and tradition of a Catholic wedding, solely because she fell in love with a woman.”
“She might not have elected to marry in the Church even if she were marrying a man,” I tell him. To be honest, I seriously doubt she would have.
“I know that,” he says. “But that choice was never hers, and that’s what I’m angry about.
That, and the Church’s general hostility to gay people.
I’ve never been proud of that, but since Kelsey came out, it’s been weighing on me more and more.
” He heaves a sigh big enough that I can feel his chest lift and settle in my embrace. “And now…”
“Yeah,” I say. “Now you can no longer pretend it’s not about you, too.”
He goes absolutely silent and still, and for a moment, I worry I’ve gone too far, said something I can’t take back.
Then he turns his face into my neck and breathes out. His breath is warm and his lips graze my skin. “Yeah. That’s it.” He lets go of me and steps back, avoiding looking directly at me. “I know it makes me a hypocrite.”
I catch his hand and tug on it to keep him close. “No, Jason. I know how important your faith is to you. It’s really hard to feel torn between that and the people you love.”
“Shouldn’t I love my daughter more?”
“Don’t you?” I ask him. “You’re here as a part of her wedding, aren’t you? You unequivocally accepted Kelsey when she came out to you. You’ve never been anything less than welcoming and loving toward Adrienne.”
He snorts. “Is that the bar? I didn’t disown my daughter or refuse to acknowledge her relationship and that’s what makes me a good father?”
I don’t think Jason appreciates what a leap that can be for some people. But this isn’t about my shitty parents. “You are a good father, Jason, and a kind and wonderful man, and you’re not responsible for the position the Catholic Church takes on social issues.”
“I could leave the Church. If its positions are so anathema to my own values and my own vision of God, why do I stay?”
“You could leave,” I agree. “But you must get something out of it or you would have left before now.”
An errant breeze lifts a strand of his hair and blows it across his face. My fingers itch to brush it away, but he drops my hand and does it himself.
“Why do you stay?” I can’t stop myself from asking. Jason looks off into the rainforest just beyond the path Kelsey will walk down as a makeshift aisle tomorrow.
“My job,” he says simply. “I love my job. And there aren’t a ton of opportunities for organists and choral conductors, much less one with a doctoral degree in sacred music.”
When he looks back at me, his eyes shift over my shoulder and the expression on his face changes. He doesn’t look angry anymore, but he’s lost the vulnerability that he let me see.
“Dad?” Kelsey comes up from behind and stops next to me. “I should have told you about asking Daddy to perform the wedding ceremony.”
It’s not exactly an apology and it doesn’t really clear the air between us. I’m not sure whether she saw me embrace Jason, and, at this point, I care more about Jason’s feelings than Kelsey’s about us.
“It’s okay,” Jason says. “I understand not wanting a stranger to officiate. I’m glad Victor agreed to do it.” He smiles—tight, performed—but he's putting on a good show. “Let’s finish the rehearsal, okay? I’m ready for a drink.”
We walk through the ceremony, which doesn’t take long, and Luz checks in with Kelsey and Adrienne about a couple of last-minute things. Jason disappears toward the bar and I’m about to follow when Adrienne catches my arm.
“Victor, wait.”
I stop, wary. I’ve had enough interrogations for one trip.
But Adrienne just tilts her head toward Kelsey, who’s standing at the edge of the gazebo, watching the path Jason took. “She wants to talk to you. She won’t admit it, but she’s worried about him.”
“Then she should go talk to him, not me.”
“She’s scared. She doesn’t know what’s going on.” Adrienne gives me a look. “Neither do I, for that matter. But whatever it is, Kelsey saw you two talking and she’s been chewing her thumbnail for the past ten minutes.”
I glance over at Kelsey. She does look worried. Young and uncertain.
“Fine,” I mutter, and walk over to her.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” She doesn’t look at me. “Is Dad okay?”
“Not really,” I say honestly.
“I saw you—“ She stops, bites her lip. “You were hugging him. Before I came over. He looked upset.”
So she did see. “Yeah.”
She fidgets with her engagement ring, turning it around and around her finger. “Is it my fault? The officiant thing?”
It’s more complicated than that, but I’m not going to explain Jason’s crisis of faith to his stepdaughter in a gazebo the night before her wedding. “Didn’t help.” She winces and I soften, a little. “But it’s not really about you, Kels. It’s about him and the Church and…a lot of things.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t understand what’s going on. With him. With you two. Any of it.”
“I know.” I take a breath. We’re not okay, Kelsey and me. She said some things yesterday that I’m not over, and I’m sure she’s not over what I said either. But right now, that’s not what matters. “You should go talk to him.”
“What would I even say?”
“I don’t know. But I think he needs you right now more than he needs me.”
She searches my face for a long moment. I don’t know what she’s looking for. Permission, maybe? Or some sign that I’m not angry anymore? I am still angry. But I’m also tired, and worried about Jason, and not willing to blow up either of our relationships with our daughter.
“Okay,” she finally says. She turns to go, then stops. “Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m still mad at you. But I don’t want to be.”
It’s not an apology. But it’s something.
“Same, kiddo,” I tell her. “Same.”