Our father couldn’t marry Andrea
at Immaculate Conception
or ask Father Brewer to come to the house
to marry them because he was divorced
and she wasn’t Catholic,
which made it seem like they weren’t really
getting married at all.

The ceremony was performed by a judge
that none of us knew, a man my father had paid
to come to the house and do the job,
the way you’d pay an electrician.

When it was over, Andrea kept holding
her glass up to the light,
remarking on how the champagne
matched the color of her dress
exactly.

For the first time, I was able to see
how pretty she was, how happy
and young.

My father was forty-nine
on the day of his second wedding,
and his new wife in her champagne satin
was thirty-one.

Still, Maeve and I had no idea
why he married her. Looking back,
I have to say
we lacked imagination.

We lacked imagination.
We lacked imagination.
We lacked
imagination.