As those who study such things say, there are three kinds of married physicians:

Those who marry their sweetheart before finishing med school,
Those who wed a nurse afterward, and
Those who march down the aisle with another doc.

Dad was in the first category, which meant that Mom pretty much put him through. Dad’s sister Nan, in the class just after him, was the second kind, thanks to Mom introducing her to her brother Jerry, who actually was a nurse, but once Nan was working, he didn’t have to be one.

As I forever must explain, that makes Nan and Jerry a double aunt and a double uncle to me and Ruthie. I usually draw a diagram.

Dad and Aunt Nan were oncologists, which meant that they went to the same conferences in places like Aspen. Pediatricians, on the other hand, convene in places like Omaha, but that’s the way it is in medicine. Myself, I plan on being a dermatologist, as they at least have conferences in places like New Orleans.

Uncle Jerry would more or less move in with us when the spouses were off conferencing, Mom appreciating a brother-in-law who could repair about anything, and Aunt Nan appreciating her husband getting a balanced diet when she was away.

Sometimes we kids, Mom and Uncle Jerry would kick back and watch a video, Mom getting him to give her the healing touch kind of backrub he’d learned in nursing. It’s best when you’re warm, they told us, why he did it under the afghan. If he wasn’t finished when the video was over, they’d shoo us off to bed. When once I saw his PJs on her bed, she’d said he’d thrown them in so she’d wash them. “The woes of being the sister.”

When the conferences were in interesting settings, the four of them would go together, Dad and Nan to talk about medicine; Mom and Uncle Jerry along for the ride. Ruthie and I would stay with Grandma and Grandpa K.

Perhaps the oncologists chose to meet in Reykjavik to talk about northern melanomas, or whatever, but more likely, they’d run out of places like Italy. Plus Iceland’s actually pretty close, everyone understands English, and there are no terrorists.

As Grandma and Grandpa K. had scheduled their cruise for that same week, our folks said that Ruthie and I could tag along. Probably Grandma and Grandpa K. wouldn’t glance up from the bridge table when they sailed through the canal.

It was late by the time we arrived at our rental -- a flat with two bedrooms and a sofa-bed -- and when we’d carried things in, I couldn’t figure out which bedroom was the folk’s, as most of Mom’s stuff had gone to one and Dad’s to the other, but I figured they’d sort it out.

As Ruthie and I couldn’t agree on who had to sleep on the floor, Mom said to share the sofa, but if we squabbled, we’d both have to sleep on the floor.

As Aunt Nan had read that Islanders are European, we had to do goodnight kisses on both cheeks. Aunts can be into manners. Also joking, as she said that it’s because to stay warm, people make out more up here.

Ruthie could have gone into the bathroom to change, but I guess because we were where customs are different, she just stripped to her underwear, pulled on her nightgown and extracted her bra.

From our sofa, Ruthie and I could hear gulls from the waterfront, but more than that, the onset of rhythms from both bedrooms. Maybe she was listening as well as she reached over and goosed me, but as I didn’t want it to sound as if we were squabbling, I let her get away with it.

Sisters think they’re so smart when they make you get a boner, and then turn around and whisper that you’re a creep when you feel them up.

The next morning, Mom drafted me to go with her in search of pastries, our first daylight look at Iceland, and the place seemed exotic. Exotic in a modern sort of way, that is, like signs with letters that didn’t work together. A lot was in English, though, for people like us. Exotic in how Mom took my arm and got right up against me.

Back home, she sometimes goes without her bra around the house, but not when she goes out. Maybe up here she didn’t need to worry so much about running into someone she knows.

“We’ll be the regular pastry runners,” she decided, my arm across her sweater whenever we stepped over a curb, her nipples hard in the morning air.

The others were still getting up when we returned. It must not have bothered Aunt Nan being in just her bra, as she shanghaied an apple fritter. I’d felt Mom’s nipples as we’d walked; Aunt Nan’s bumped her bra. A guy notices.

Dad and Aunt Nan would be off to their conference. Ruthie and I had the morning to check out the sights. Mom and Uncle Jerry said they’d be right behind us, but when we returned, Mom -- dressed as when we’d left -- intercepted us in the living room, quick to give us lunch money, and when Ruthie said we’d just had a yogurt, told us to go find something more nutritious. “Take your time. Lots to explore.”

“Know why she gave us the boot?” Ruthie asked me at the Pizza Hut.

“Got me.”

“I could hear Dad and Aunt Nan in the back.”

“They’re at their conference.”

“Dad always says that opening ceremonies are a waste of time. The only ones that ever left were us.”

We non-conferencees took the tour that afternoon that included a geothermal spring, but the brochure said nothing about getting in. The Germans, however, thought otherwise.

A naked German is naked, of course, but perhaps because they speak a foreign language, it’s more of an anonymous nakedness. Germans come in all shapes.

It was Mom, of all people, who said we should, too, in our underwear, and her brother was as fast as she was in getting there. The two would have seen each other that way as kids, of course, but this was in front of everybody else.

Ruthie, more gutsy than me, laughed, did the same, and handed me her things to put on a rock.

Not that I hadn’t seen Mom and my sister in their underwear a million times, but not when their bras were wet, and for sure not their panties that way, and wet’s about the same as nothing, Their hair took some getting used to.

And as for how I looked in return, what could I do? Mom, being Mom, pretended to be looking at a rock behind me, but she couldn’t fool me. Ruthie, on the other hand, did nothing to disguise her appraisal, a big grin while so doing.

“Tidal wave!” she challenged a few moments later, a splash preceding an attempted dunk, her thigh getting away with what the Germans couldn’t see, it being underwater. She’d asked for what she got in return, not for that long, of course, unless you’re both doing it.

After a bit, Ruthie halted in mid-attack. “Getting something down there, Mr. Nature Boy.?”

It wasn’t my fault.

Not just a few of the Germans had dispersed to alcoves, and more often than not was the female now on her partner’s lap, them facing each other, but I guess they were married.

Nearer by, Mom was on Jerry, not facing him, but with her bra straps down, his arms around her. Her straps as they were, the tops of her moons showed, but I suppose the Germans were used to such things. Uncle Jerry, being just over her shoulder, had a closer view, but being her brother, I suppose it was OK.

When Mom said that it was the boy’s job to be a chair, Ruthie was on my underpants before I could argue. At least where she was underwater, and she didn’t swat me off when I cupped her bra in retaliation.

When Mom suggested that she and Ruthie switch places, though, I decided it was time to get out and went behind a rock to change my undershorts for real pants.

After the stop, off we went to a glacier. The Germans had of course put their underwear back on, but ours being wet, Mom had a plastic bag. Her being without panties didn’t escape my mind, but it wasn’t something I could actually tell.

It was disconcerting, walking on an ice field behind a German lady whose breasts I knew to swing like pendulums, and whose lack of shaving was memory-perfect.

Reboarding, she turned my way, “Nicht so aufregend wie im heisse pool, richtig?” apparently thinking I spoke her tongue, but seeing I didn’t, switched. “It is not so exciting as in the hot pool, yes?” to which I nodded to be polite.

“Perhaps,” my German friend continued, “our families should have together a sauna time,” to which I again nodded, but thought not. Maybe just her and me, though.

“There’s this Blue Lagoon here,” my sister informed me on the onward ride, “but it’s not where Brooke Shields got famous. She was fourteen, why they did it in a different country.”

“Today almost counts, though,” she went on before producing a brochure. “Here’s this sauna place where you steam for starts, and then go to an ‘Ergonomische Matte’ for the ‘Biologische.’ ‘Kapazität zwei,’ it says.”

“Meaning?”

“Ergonomic mat for the first part. Capacity two. Kaput something.”

How Ruthie knew German, I’d no idea, as she’s taking Spanish.

“Tidal wave!” she whispered as we neared our outing’s end, another geyser, leaning enough my way to remind me her bra was elsewhere, her hand on my leg to steady herself.

I’d have escaped, but as an abrupt move might have looked suspicious to the Germans, she’d the time to confirm what she was after.

“Nature Boy!”

Back at our place, the medical literature on the kitchen table -- medical conferences being big in off-loading papers -- told me that Dad and Aunt Nan had beaten us back, but where were they?.

“Probably went to that ice cream place,” Mom’s answer. “What’s say all of us go get some, ourselves?” turning us back toward the door before we’d had the chance to find dry underwear.

The missing docs weren’t at the ice cream store, where Ruthie again caught me eying still-bralessness Mom, and again goosed me beneath the table. You can’t fight back, your mother being right there.

Mom had me finish her dilly bar and by the time we returned, there they were, Dad and Aunt Nan at the table, looking at conference papers.

I informed them we’d been on a glacier.

Mom mentioned we’d taken a dip “a natural,” which I’d rather not have been made known, as they might think that “a natural” meant naked, when in fact we’d had something on.

“Sounds like a fun day,” decided Dad, making a place on his lap for Ruthie, there not enough chairs. She flashed me a grin before reaching for his papers in a manner that surely showed him what I saw on the bus, and asking him which was the most interesting.

“So now,” Mom wrapping up her report, “there’s no issue, us doubling up in the shower to save water,” which some seemed to think funny.

I didn’t see the need to conserve H2O in Iceland, but didn’t point it out.

I just needed some underwear before my sister might again goose me under a table.

That evening was the reception in the big museum, medical conferences preferring such venues for their social gatherings. Ruthie and I tagged along with Dad and Aunt Nan for the hors devours and to look at whalebones. The two left-behinds- said they’d maybe watch a video, the selection being what previous visitors deemed not worth hauling back.

We pretty quickly lost track of Dad and Aunt Nan in the museum, but saw them coming out of the fluorescent mineral room.

“Radioactive, probably, all that glow-in-the-dark,” Ruthie’s opinion, so we two went to where you see inside a volcano.

Afterward, the four of us stopped by a hospitality suite where a company rep in a cut-away dress served Ruthie and me rum and cokes, the only thing we could think of when asked.

“We’re with them,” I explained, pointing across the room to Dad and Aunt Nan.

“Wonderful. We so enjoy chatting with your parents about our recent developments,” and asked if we planned to be physicians ourselves.

She thinks that Dad and Aunt Nan are married? I wondered, but I only said that we were still deciding.

“Well, you should,” pausing for effect. “Then your family would be a double paradox,” a line she probably rarely gets to use. “Can I get you another,” more of a standard line for conferences, I’d think.

I said sure, as our rental was really close.

“Oh. That’s why we couldn’t find their room number. Knowing what wine our docs like waiting for them after a day of presentations is our little way of saying we value their clinical expertise. Your folks will love the yacht night we’ve planned for Mazatlán, ‘Margaritas by Moonlight.’ Laid back. We’ll have all the cabins on the boat so they can spread out if they want to stay on.”

“Nice way to end a long day,” agreed my sister.

I hadn’t known that when it was just the two of them, Dad and his sister shared a room, though once when I’d called to tell him I’d made the team, Aunt Nan answered and said he was in the shower. Mom overheard and said that sharing a room saved money, and that Nan having kept her maiden name, nobody would think anything of it.

Ruthie asked the rep if she had any samples of something for ED, to which the woman said that they were still working with the FDA. Maybe in a year. “How about a laser pen for when you give a presentation at school?” moving on to attendees with more prescription potential.

When I asked afterward, Ruthie said that Endrocronic Dilesion was something they’d talked about in biology. When I took it, it was mostly about things in tide pools.

I felt gallant, helping Aunt Nan with her jacket, my hand on her back.

“I thank you, kind sir,” twisting my way when I went lower than intended, rum and coke being why.

“I thank you, kind sir,” my sister parroted as we lasered an Exit sign.

Back again at our place, Rocky III was on the screen and the stay-at-homes were on the sofa in their PJs.