Ch 20: All That Can Be Known

Three funerals, the end of a threat, and more unanswered questions.

When I was a teenager, I remember my dad, Norm, saying to me, “I courted your mother through all her funerals.” I never questioned it; I never thought about what a married man was doing courting a married woman, especially a Catholic man and a Catholic woman. I never asked what he meant by courting. I never asked about his wife, Betty, or about Mom’s husband, Bob.

By that time in my life, I was so used to not asking questions that they didn’t even cross my mind. I didn’t question the nuns about things that no longer made sense about my Catholic faith; I didn’t question myself about why I wasn’t like the other girls my age who couldn’t talk about anything but boys; and I didn’t question my parents about their earlier lives. I just smiled when Dad told me about his courting ritual and thought how bittersweet that sounded. As I remember it now, I regret not trying to find out more.