I made the mistake of falling for a man who wants a wife. I should clarify that I do not mean he wants me to be his wife. Men don’t look at me and think I’d make good wife material. Maybe because of how much I swear. But I go to Berlin to see him, he tells me his future plans for marriage and family, and I understand that I am not compatible with those plans. Then I flee, to huddle in the backs of cathedrals, an impulse that I do not fully understand.
I am not Catholic, and yet I find myself drawn to the women saints. There is something about them that I admire. Maybe it is simply the lengths to which they went to avoid marrying. When St. Catherine’s mother said her hair would surely attract a good suitor, she cut all of it off. When St. Lucia’s pursuer said she had lovely eyes, she cut them out and presented them to him. (“What,” I imagine her asking him as he screamed. “I thought you said you liked them.”) Then there’s St. Olga of Kiev, whose feast day is my birthday. Emissaries came to her and suggested she marry their prince. She had them all buried alive.
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