Chapter 35: Dad

December 11, 1984, Rutherford, Ohio

"What do you want us to do?" Clarissa asked.

"If you and Jocelyn will just wait here, Elizaveta and I will go get my dad."

"You're that confident?"

"No, but I have to seem confident to successfully make the case to my dad. And I have less than ten minutes in which to do that."

Jocelyn and I got out of the car, then Clarissa and Elizaveta got out of the back seats. I took Elizaveta's hand and led her into the County Administration Building. We took the stairs to the second floor, then continued down the hall to the Property Division offices.

"Hi, Mike!" the receptionist, Mrs. Vogel, said, greeting me.

"Hi, Mrs. Vogel. This is my fiancée, Elizaveta. We need to see my dad, please."

"Nice to meet you, Elizaveta! Congratulations, Mike!"

"Thanks."

"Your dad is in his office. Go on back."

She buzzed, and we went through the low, swinging door into the office and went to where my dad sat. He had a small private office, and I stopped at the door and knocked.

"Hi, Dad," I said.

"Mike? What are you doing here?"

"Can we come in, please?"

He gave me a funny look, but I was confident that bringing Elizaveta with me would ensure he'd at least give me a chance to speak, even if he wouldn't listen to what I said.

"I suppose," he replied.

Elizaveta and I stepped into the office, and I shut the door behind us.

"I want you to come across the street to the courthouse," I said. "Not to approve, but to be there for Mom, Elizaveta, and me."

He frowned, "Your mom is there?"

"I'm assuming she is," I replied. "And I suspect you believe she is."

He grimaced and looked down at the desk, avoiding eye contact.

"Dad," I said, speaking confidently but quietly, "I don't have much time because Paul and Liz can't wait on us, but I want to say one very important thing to you — you were, and are, a good dad; I mean that. I could confidently get up each day and know there was a roof over my head, good food on the table, warm clothes to wear, and parents who loved me and who were there for me. Parents who would help me be successful, and more importantly, would be there to help me if I got into trouble. I haven't needed that last help very often, but I knew you were there if I did. If you remember, I came to YOU when Liz and I both needed help. You loved us, trusted us, cared for us, and helped us fix a problem that threatened to destroy both of us. Please don't throw that away. Come across the street with us."

He was quiet and said nothing, which told me I might be having some success.

"John tells us," I continued, speaking softly, "that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, and forgives our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. I'm not talking about Liz or Paul or Mom or me but about you. If you confessed sleeping with Mom before you married, which I'm sure you did in your life confession before your chrismation, then you're forgiven. If you confessed whatever failings you saw in yourself as a dad, then you're forgiven. And whatever you might think, I do not blame you for anything that happened. I love you, and I don't want this family destroyed."

He was quiet but had looked up and was staring stoically at me.

"Dad," Elizaveta said softly, "please come to the wedding."

At that instant, I realized I should have kept my mouth shut and simply allowed Elizaveta to speak those six words because tears began streaming down my dad's face. Elizaveta walked over to the desk, took some tissues from a box, and handed them to my dad. He blew his nose, then took another tissue to dab his eyes. He got up, and the three of us left his office.

"I'll be back in about thirty minutes," Dad said to Mrs. Vogel. "I have a wedding to go to."

"Mike?" she asked in surprise.

"No," my dad replied. "Liz. Mike will have a church wedding next May. Liz is going before a judge."

We went down the stairs and out into the parking lot. I decided to walk with my dad across the street, so I handed my keys to a very surprised Clarissa and asked her to bring my car across the street. Wide-eyed, she took the keys, and she and Jocelyn got into my Mustang while Elizaveta and I walked across the street. The five of us met on the steps of the courthouse, then went inside and up to the second floor. We found the correct courtroom where Liz, Paul, and two other couples were waiting.

"Hi, Mom," I said with a silly grin.

She looked up and went just as wide-eyed as Clarissa had been in the parking lot.

"Peter?!" Mom gasped.

"DAD?!" Liz squealed, hurrying over.

"Hi," he said sheepishly.

"What did Mike say?" Mom asked.

"A lot," Dad said with a smile, "but it was one word from Elizaveta that changed my mind. She called me 'Dad'."

I left them and moved a few paces to where Paul was sitting.

"I don't know how you did it," he said. "But thanks."

"You're welcome. You only get one chance here, I hope you realize."

"Got any advice?"

"If my dad wants to dress you down for your behavior in the past, allow him to do it. Take it like a man and admit your mistakes. Then tell him you love Liz and you'll never ever do anything to hurt her."

Paul nodded and pulled a slip of paper in a piece of clear plastic used for wallet photos from his pocket and showed it to me. I chuckled because written on the slip of paper was 'Harding County Morgue' along with the address and phone number.

"I carry this with me all the time," he replied. "You made your point quite succinctly."

"Good," I grinned. "Just treat Liz properly, and my dad will come around. Give him grandkids, and that'll help."

Paul laughed, "I think you'll need to talk to your sister about that one! She's talking years, not months before she gets pregnant."

"I'll leave that one for the two of you to sort out," I grinned.

A bailiff came into the room and asked for the couples being married to come forward. They moved through the swinging gate of the 'bar' to wait for the judge. The rest of us moved to the front row of benches to sit, along with several other people who were there for the other couples. About five minutes later, a clerk came in to confirm that the marriage certificates were in order, and a few minutes after that, the judge came into the courtroom.

"All rise!" the bailiff called out. "All those having matters before this honorable court draw near, and you shall be heard!"

Rather than go to the bench, the judge came to stand before the three couples. He greeted them, then began the ceremony.

"Now, he continued, I'll ask each couple, in turn, to recite their vows."

Paul and Liz were second.

"Do you, Paul, take this woman, Elizabeth, to be your lawful wedded wife, forsaking all others?"

"I do."

"Do you, Elizabeth, take this man, Paul, to be your lawful wedded husband, forsaking all others?"

"I do."

"The rings, please," the judge said.

Paul and Liz exchanged rings, stating the traditional 'With this ring, I thee wed'.

"Now, for as much that Paul and Elizabeth have consented to live together in wedlock, and having declared their intention before me and these witnesses, and with no legal impediments having been shown, I, Judge Warren Melton, by the power vested in me by the State of Ohio and Harding County, do hereby join them together, and declare they are now husband and wife."

He completed the vows for the third couple.

"You may all kiss your brides!" he said with a grin.

They did, and all of us assembled to watch applauded. The judge signed the marriage certificates, the clerk stamped them and then handed them to each of the men.

"How long can you stay, Mike?" Dad asked quietly.

"Elizaveta has a 10:00pm curfew," I replied.

Dad shook his head, "Given the maturity she's shown, I think you and I need the curfews, not her."

"TELL me about it," I chuckled. "She's certainly seized control of the situation."

"Careful, husband," Elizaveta warned with her prim smile.

"His master's voice," Jocelyn teased.

"As it should be!" Elizaveta replied, squeezing my hand.

"If it's OK," Dad said, "we'll take everyone to Lou's for dinner tonight."

"I think that's up to Liz," I said.

"We'll join you," she said. "We were just going to have a quiet dinner."

"I need to go back to the office," Dad said. "Shall we say 6:00pm at Lou's?"

Everyone agreed, and when we left, Dad went back to work, Paul and Liz went home so he could nap, given he had to work at 11:00pm, and the rest of us went to my parents' house, where Mom made tea for everyone.

"What exactly did you say to Peter?" Mom asked Elizaveta.

"I just said, 'Dad, please come to the wedding', and he started crying. But that was after Mike told him that he was a good dad, no matter what he thought of himself."

"Thank you," Mom said with what could only be described as a sound of relief.

"We're not out of the woods just yet," I said. "I advised Paul that if Dad wants to dress him down, he should take it like a man and admit his mistakes. I honestly think Dad needs to get it off his chest to get to a place where he can at least be cordial to Paul. He was there for Liz and Elizaveta today."

"But that's huge, Mike," Mom said. "I was fairly certain he'd leave me if he found out I was at the wedding."

"I was fairly certain he'd leave you, period," I replied. "Lissa and Jos agreed. You two need marital counseling."

"Says my son, who is only recently betrothed!"

"And who has been to six pre-marital counseling sessions, not to mention dinners with the Sokolovs, and considerable time with his two closest female friends who help him not be a total «глупец» (glupys)! Oh, and who has had to work out serious issues with his future wife in the past few weeks. Ask Father Herman for a recommendation for a secular counselor. I say that because Doctor Mercer has been a huge help." ("Blockhead")

"Why not her?"

"Because I think that would create difficult conflicts for her given how our relationship is developing, both as receiving counseling and for helping Angie. And in the future, we might have a professional relationship. I'm sure she could suggest someone locally."

"Why secular?" Elizaveta asked.

"Because Father Herman will need to do some serious remedial work on my dad's spiritual health. That lets him focus on what is the core issue here, at least as I see it."

"Sorry to change subjects," Mom said, "but how are things at home, Jocelyn?"

I barely managed to avoid cringing. The LAST thing I wanted was for Jocelyn to discuss why her parents and she were on the outs, as that would reveal specific information which Elizaveta had agreed I didn't need to share.

"Better," Jocelyn replied. "Mom and Dad finally came to terms with everything."

The look Elizaveta had on her face concerned me because it seemed as if she was evaluating Jocelyn as to whether or not she was a past lover. As that concern faded, I had to suppress a laugh because the TRUE threat in the room, according to everyone who knew, was Clarissa, and Elizaveta would never suspect I'd been with her. And at that moment, I realized the TRUE risk — I could get away with it with Lissa because Elizaveta would never suspect her. That revelation rocked me back mentally, as if I'd been punched in the jaw by Muhammad Ali. Now I understood EXACTLY what Father Nicholas had meant and why he'd said what he had said.

"Same here," Clarissa said. "Well, Mom came to terms with it. Dad is 'trying to deal with it', as he says."

"Which is better than before," I replied. "The next step is for them to meet Abby!"

"Is she your girlfriend, Clarissa?" Mom asked.

Clarissa smiled, "Yes. And thank you for calling her my girlfriend and not trying to find some neutral term."

"I don't claim to understand at all, but I don't see any point in being rude."

"I think the easiest answer," I interjected, "is that none of us is able to choose who we love or to whom we're attracted."

"Do any of you think Elizaveta would CHOOSE to be attracted to Mike?" Jocelyn teased.

All the women laughed, but Elizaveta squeezed my hand, which said she HAD chosen me.

"A prophet has no honor in his hometown," I replied smugly.

"Well, he's not the first man to have a 'God complex', that's for sure!" Mom said.

"Oh, he doesn't," Clarissa smirked. "HIS god is sitting next to him on the loveseat! And he knows it!"

All the women laughed again, and I just smiled. I didn't mind the teasing at all, and honestly, I hadn't seen a hint from Elizaveta that she'd be controlling, just that she'd help me be the man I wanted to be or to look at it another way, the man I ought to be.

"How are the wedding plans coming along?" Mom asked.

"Who knows?" I replied with a shrug. "We left those up to Elizaveta's grandmothers. If you want input, you'll need to take it up with them. I, for one, am staying completely out of it!"

"Me, too," Elizaveta said. "They can plan the wedding any way they wish. It's after the wedding when they do not get to tell me how to run my household!"

Mom laughed, "I had the same conversation with my mother. I never met my grandparents, and we're not sure what happened to them. My mom and dad got out of Russia in 1936, at a time when almost nobody could get out. Someone my grandfather knew fixed a travel permit for them to visit Paris. As soon as they got to Paris, they arranged to travel to New York as immigrants. They left their families in Russia and never heard from them again. Peter's grandparents died when Mike was little."

"My dad's family came here via Alaska in the 19th century," Elizaveta said. "My mom's family came over at the time of the Revolution. What about your great-grandparents, Clarissa and Jocelyn?"

"All of mine died before I turned ten," Clarissa said.

"I still have two great-grandmothers," Jocelyn said. "My great-grandfathers died in 1976 and 1979. Mike, are your grandparents from Chicago coming to your wedding?"

"They're on the list I gave to Elizaveta's grandmothers. I don't know if Mom told them."

"I did. They plan to be here despite their fear that Satan lives in our church!"

I shook my head, "According to them, we're idolaters, worship Mary as a goddess, and do a host of other satanic things, claims which are about as accurate as the claims that early Christians engaged in child sacrifice, which supplied the elements for the Eucharist, which was itself the culmination of an orgy!"

"What?!" Elizaveta exclaimed.

I grinned, "The Romans heard that the early Christians had 'love feasts' and equated those with the Bacchic mystery cults. The Bacchanalia was allegedly a drunken orgy, though we only have Livy's claims about it to go by. And you can imagine how the cannibalism claim arose in relation to the Eucharist being the 'body and blood of Christ'.

"Some Romans also made fun of the Christians as atheists because they didn't worship the gods all Romans were supposed to worship in common. Other Romans accused the Christians of practicing 'private' religion for the same reason. You can see an example of the mockery in a graffito displayed in a museum on the Palatine Hill in Rome which shows a crucified donkey with the text 'Alexamenos worships his god' written in Greek under it."

"Greek?" Jocelyn asked.

"The lingua franca of the western part of the Roman Empire was Latin, but in the east, it was Greek. Nearly all the early Christian writings are in Greek, though there is a bit of Aramaic in the New Testament. It's no more surprising that someone would have written the text in Greek than it would be to find, say, Spanish graffiti in Los Angeles. The different languages are actually the source of the theological divisions between East and West — Augustine of Hippo couldn't read Greek very well, if at all, and that caused no end of trouble!"

"According to Mike!" Jocelyn declared.

"It's hard to do accurate theology when all the important original source material is in Greek, and you have to rely on translations of varying and suspect quality! There's a reason we use Greek terms to discuss Christology. But we're getting WAY off-topic here. Suffice it to say that my grandparents are of the Tim Saddler variety of Protestant."

"But you wiped the floor with him!" Elizaveta declared.

"Family peace is more important than theology," Mom said. "It took some time for them to accept Peter's conversion, though they did come to our wedding. Obviously, I missed something; what happened?"

"A Calvinist preacher was on campus and started harassing our friends Robby and Lee," Clarissa said. "Mike stepped up to refute the harsh judgment the preacher was calling down on Robby and Lee, and a debate started there. In the end, at the encouragement of other students, especially Melody, Mike challenged the Reverend to a formal debate. That happened about six weeks ago, and Mike kicked his ass from McKinley to the Pennsylvania state line and back!"