Chapter 46: An Unnecessary Meltdown

December 4, 1987, McKinley, Ohio

Clarissa arrived on Friday evening as planned, and I walked Maryam to her car.

“I enjoyed spending time with you and Rachel,” Maryam said.

“I enjoyed spending time with you as well, and I really appreciate the help.”

“Would it be OK to hug you?”

“Yes, of course!”

We exchanged a light hug, and Maryam surprised me with a soft kiss on the cheek.

“Have a good evening,” she said.

“Good night!”

She got into her car, and once she’d driven off, I walked back into the house.

“Interesting development,” Clarissa teased.

“Spying on me, Lissa?”

“Who? Me?”

“Yes, you!”

“I might have watched out the kitchen window! You realize what that was, right?”

“A hug and a kiss on the cheek,” I replied.

“You are not that dense, Petrovich! You’ve had two dates, even though they were just drinking tea at Doctor Blahnik’s house, spent today together, and she hugged and kissed your cheek! She’s telling you she’s interested in her own conservative way.”

“Assuming that’s true, I’m still going to be careful and take baby steps. And you know it won’t progress beyond that hug and kiss without a commitment on both our parts.”

“Assuming it’s true? Of course it’s true! She’s had a crush on you from the moment she laid eyes on you, but you were married and a deacon, so there was literally nothing that could happen because neither of you would have considered anything that violated your ordination or your marriage.”

“I can worry about that another day,” I replied.

“What happened yesterday?”

“Let me make some hot cocoa and then we can sit in the living room and talk.”

Ten minutes later, we carried steaming mugs of hot cocoa into the living room, and when I sat down, I totally wasn’t surprised when Clarissa sat down and snuggled close. I put one arm around her and she sighed deeply. We sipped our cocoa, and I explained what had happened with Doctor Rosenbaum, but giving Clarissa the names, which I hadn’t done with Maryam.

“What a prick!” Clarissa declared. “That’s just lower than low! I can’t believe you’re just going to take it lying down!”

“I’m not. I’m responding according to my own ethical system and my personality. What better way to piss him off than to cheerfully do every bit of scut he assigns? When he can no longer influence anything, then I’ll consider if it’s worth filing a formal complaint or just ignoring him, which I can do, as I have no need for pediatric training beyond this rotation.”

“So he gets away with it?”

“I think it’s more complicated than it seems. If Heather refuses to testify and denies saying anything, it’s his word against mine, and if he can come up with any plausible answer, nothing will come of it. Heck, even if the phone company records show a call made from Pediatrics to Saint Michael, there could be explanations, and could they prove Doctor Rosenbaum did it?”

“It’s bullshit, Petrovich!”

“Of course it is, and you know as well as I do that we’ll have to put up with all kinds of BS for the next five to ten years; shorter for you than for me. I’ve thought about it since yesterday, and I think my approach is correct. Doctor Olson will give me more opportunities, and I’ll take advantage of them.

“There’s no point in fighting what could be a losing battle with Rosenbaum. You also know we’re likely to run into other pricks, as you called him, during rotations and Residency. I once described it as low-level hazing, and I think that’s not something we can change now. We can, on the other hand, vow not to do it to our medical students and refuse to allow our Residents to do it when we’re Attendings. That’s how we fix it.”

“I get the whole turn the other cheek bit, but this seems like that’s going too far.”

“Lissa, I win if he’s annoyed and I’m happy. What he did allowed me to spend more time with the kids, and you know they need that as much as I do!”

Clarissa smirked, “What Billy needs is twenty minutes alone with Joy!”

I laughed, “He’s a card, that one. Was he discharged?”

“Yes, but not before he hit on me!” Clarissa smirked. “I told him my girlfriend would object and the little pig said she could join us!”

I laughed hard, “Hard to believe that kid is fourteen!”

“A typical horny fourteen-year-old boy who wants nothing more than to get laid! I think you can relate!”

“No comment,” I chuckled.

“That was your singular goal in High School — to find a girl, any girl, who would put out! You were scared of Tasha or you’d have had your dream fulfilled at sixteen or seventeen!”

“And that might have led to disaster because she was singularly unconcerned about birth control at first.”

“Those crazy Antonov girls!” Clarissa declared mirthfully.

“And I’ll point out that getting laid was NOT my singular focus; it wasn’t even my primary one! Medicine was, though I will admit that getting laid was second!”

“A very close second!”

“Whatever!”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Band practice in the morning, then just chilling until Vespers. Anicka is going to take Rachel while we practice, as it’s too loud in the music room for Rachel’s little ears. Lara will take Rachel from me at church, and I’ll go straight to the hospital from there. I meant to ask, how did Alicia’s spinal tap turn out?”

“Clear,” Clarissa replied, “and the stain was negative. She’s off the antibiotics and she’ll go home tomorrow.”

“Cool.”

“Did she flirt with you?”

“Not every girl on the planet flirts with me, Lissa! And she called me ‘the enemy’. I was wearing a white coat, and that made me complicit with the plans to give her another tap.”

Clarissa smirked, “So, Petrovich, would you tap the cute cheerleader?”

“NO!” I chuckled. “She’s fifteen, and that’s WAY too young, not to mention it being against the law!”

“I meant a spinal tap, of course,” Clarissa said with faux piety.

“Uh-huh.”

“If I can’t tease you, who can I tease?”

“Tessa, I hope!”

“Wouldn’t YOU like to know?!”

I chuckled, “Despite that very common fantasy amongst guys, especially doctors, you know that’s not me.”

“I’m curious, and this is not a suggestion, but would you watch Insatiable?”

“Anicka called it a ‘silly movie’,” I chuckled. “And no, I have no particular interest in watching pornography. What about you?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, porn is meant for men, and I wouldn’t get off on seeing it.”

“What would lesbian porn look like?” I asked.

Clarissa laughed, “Boring, because it would involve lots of cuddling, and not nearly as much action as I hear a typical porn movie has!”

“So, like us right now?” I asked with a silly smile, pulling her a bit more tightly to me.

“Except naked!”

“It might be worth watching that to see the freckles...” I teased.

“You’re hilarious, Petrovich! You’d look at her freckles?”

“They’re incredibly sexy! And especially if they’re on the girl’s breasts!”

“And her butt, and her legs, arms, and pretty much everywhere except her stomach for some reason. Got that image in your mind now?”

“It can’t displace your image, Lissa.”

“I thought you filed that one away once you and your pussy cat were betrothed.”

“I pulled it out of long-term storage the other day when I stared at your panty-covered butt!”

“You could see it now, if you wanted...”

“Lissa,” I said gently.

“You know it’s about closeness,” Clarissa said quietly, “not about sex.”

“Yes, and you and Tessa are a couple.”

“And she knows how close we are and how much we love each other! She’d be OK with it, though she’d need a quid pro quo!”

“Which would be...”

“Even you aren’t that dense, Petrovich!”

“And you’d be OK with that?”

“She’s not going to leave me for you, and it would be worth it. And I don’t mean that in a grudging way, either. Of course, I might want to watch...”

I laughed, “So much for not getting off on porn!”

“It would be educational and medically interesting!”

“That sounds like something I would say when I was being silly!”

“Which you are again,” Clarissa said happily. “If there was one thing I hated about the last two years, it was that. Lizochka wasn’t the problem; it was your cassock. She was a lot of fun, and would have been just as goofy as you were without your ordination.”

“And without impending ordination, I wouldn’t have considered marrying her. Despite the tragic ending, I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, obviously, if there had been some way to avoid the tragedy, I’d have done that, but she’d likely have died after giving birth, no matter who she’d married or when. And she was always going to marry and have a baby, so I don’t blame myself for what happened, nor do I blame the bishop.”

“May I confess something?”

“That you’ve been a bad girl and had your tongue in places it doesn’t belong?” I smirked.

“If you mean on your glans, then yes!”

“Cute, Lissa. What?”

“I was hoping to see you shake your fist at God. I know it’s wrong, but it just seems in your worldview, it’s God’s fault.”

“If you think that, you haven’t been paying enough attention. Remember, even if we accept the Genesis myths as historical fact, God made us innocent and curious, and gave us free will and intellect to observe and learn from the world.”

“OK, but if it’s not historical fact, how can you say mortality entered the world because of Adam’s sin?”

“It entered the world because of humanity’s decision to follow its own will, not God’s. Adam stands for all those humans who came before the first covenant was made with Abraham. And it is mortality that is transmitted by procreation, not sin, as the Romans and their daughter churches teach.

“There is no such thing as ‘Original Sin’ in the sense most people mean, following Augustine, as some kind of sexually transmitted disease. Mortality, on the other hand, is transmitted through procreation. And that is why we don’t have to do any hand-waving like the Immaculate Conception to protect Mary and Jesus from ‘Original Sin’.

“To be fully man, Christ had to share every single trait with humanity, including mortality and the possibility to sin. The Romans would reject that, but they’re wrong. It’s why they have the hand-waving of Mary’s Assumption, whereas we call it ‘Dormition of the Theotokos’. Orthodox teaching is that Mary died, that is, ‘fell asleep in the Lord’.

“The Romans believe, generally, that she didn’t die because they have to, to make their convoluted system work. Granted, it’s not dogmatic, and there have been references to Mary’s death in Roman Catholic writing, but Orthodoxy is clear that she died. If the Romans ever dogmatically say she died, their entire theological system will collapse.”

“Why?”

“If the Immaculate Conception is true, then Mary died without inheriting Original Sin, and as the Romans teach she was actually sinless, then she couldn’t die. The entire mess can be laid at the feet of Augustine of Hippo and his Manichaeism. But back to what you said, I, like Job, say ’though he slay me, I will not curse him’.”

“But if God created everything, isn’t he responsible for everything?”

“In a reducto ad absurdum kind of way, yes, but we don’t hold General Motors responsible for Frank Bush running down Robby and Lee. I mean, if I want to fix blame, and I’ve said this before, it’s on the medical community for not having a way to detect and repair the kind of congenital defect that Elizaveta had. My response to that is not to curse medicine, but to do what I can to help prevent it from happening in the future. That would be the best way to honor Elizaveta’s memory.”

“What do you propose to tell Rachel?”

“The truth,” I replied. “She’ll call whomever I marry ‘Mom’, but when she’s old enough to understand, I’ll show her Elizaveta’s picture and explain what happened. By the way, I intend to have my wife, whomever that is, legally adopt Rachel. She’ll be ‘Mom’ in every sense of the word, except for biologically. And we’ll never use ‘half’ to describe the sibling relationship because Rachel and any future brothers and sisters will all have the same mom, if that makes sense.”

“It does. Some people would try to preserve Elizaveta’s place.”

“She’ll always be in my heart, and she’ll always be Rachel’s biological mom, but Rachel never knew her. If she had been old enough to know ‘Mommy’, I’d handle it differently, but I would never do anything to diminish the woman that she’ll call ‘Mom’.”

“I think that all makes sense, and it seems as if you’ve thought it through, which wasn’t the case just a few weeks ago.”

“Your prescription kind of broke the logjam, so to speak.”

“All that semen was backing up and addling your brain more than usual!”

“Love you, too, Lissa!”

“Are you going to see Annette again?”

“Probably. I have to decide if you and I are going to Match at Vanderbilt or not.”

“NOT!” Clarissa declared firmly. “I hope you’re teasing.”

“You don’t think I should legitimately consider Annette’s offer?”

“She was that good?”

“It’s not about that, and you know it! But I think I need to give real consideration to what she said.”

“Come on, Petrovich! You know why it’s foolish!”

“I do,” I replied. “And I just managed to yank YOUR chain!”

“Nice, Petrovich! But I suppose you can keep up the fiction long enough to have her again!”

I chuckled, “I don’t need the fiction! She enjoyed our encounter sufficiently to want a repeat.”

“Of course she did! You never had any real complaints, except from the girls you resisted! Well, and a few girls who were totally frustrated with you.”

“Janey and Melody, as well as Nancy, at times.”

“Have you seen her recently? Nancy, I mean.”

“No. She graduated the year before last, and I haven’t seen or heard from her.”

“You see Janey when you’re at the other parish, right?”

“No. She’s moved away, and after Tasha dealt with her, by, as Tasha put it, ‘taking out the trash’, Janey avoided me like the plague! Melody is in law school, and will graduate in May, but I haven’t seen her in over a year.”

“Katy Malenkov is working on her Master’s, right?”

“At Stanford. She’ll be home in a week.”

“You spoke with her at Elizaveta’s memorial service, right?”

“Yes, though only briefly. She flew back specifically for that. We could Match at Stanford!”

“What is it with you and blondes?!”

“What is it with ANY guy and blondes?” I chuckled. “But as I told Rachel the other day, Daddy has a thing for redheads!”

“Kari?”

“The fundamental challenge for her is not all that different from what it is for Annette — instant family, just add ring, in a short timeframe. The advantage Kari has, if you will, is that there isn’t an artificial time limit as there is with Annette.”

“Because you wouldn’t move to Tennessee without being married because it would be far too risky.”

“Exactly. And, truthfully, that’s a bridge too far for Annette, and putting that kind of pressure on her could lead to a very bad result.”

“A break-up.”

“Yes. As I said, Kari faces the same dilemma, but there’s no artificial time limit. That said, a step from being Roman Catholic to Orthodox would be, at least in Annette’s mind, a short step. That’s not true for Kari, for whom it would be a much bigger step.”

“Maryam, Lara, or Tasha, then.”

“Tasha is still Tasha,” I said.

“I was thinking about that,” Clarissa replied. “How is her current situation better than being married to you?”

“I think it’s psychological,” I replied. “Not having a husband is different from having one who is going to be absentee for a good part of the next three or four years. Elizaveta accepted that before we married; Tasha never could. I honestly think she’ll find someone and be married within a year. There’s a catechumen my mom told me about who is very interested, but Tasha is playing hard-to-get.”

Clarissa laughed, “Tasha has to put him off until Rachel and Larisa have their ‘sleepover’! And that means soon, so he doesn’t lose interest!”

“I told her to ask me again after Rachel and I moved into the house.”

“And the phone hasn’t rung yet?” Clarissa teased.

“I did say ‘settled’, actually.”

“Again, I’m surprised the phone hasn’t rung! If there is a hornier girl on the planet right now, I can’t imagine who it would be! Tasha hasn’t had sex since she and Nik separated, and sex with Nik was not fulfilling!”

“And how do you know that?” I asked.

“Tasha made it very clear to us girls that she was very disappointed in her physical relationship, which was totally the opposite of Lizochka, who was not shy about letting everyone know just how much she enjoyed sex with you!”

“I wouldn’t say ‘everyone’,” I replied. “She had appropriate decorum.”

“I didn’t say she gave details! But she left no illusions about how much she enjoyed the marriage bed!”

“The enjoyment was mutual,” I replied.

“So, about that cuddling?”

“You know why I’m cautious, Lissa.”

“Because that thing between your legs has a mind of its own and doesn’t know the difference between straight pussy and lesbian pussy!”

I chuckled, “I have said that, but you know it’s about you and Tessa, and not wanting to violate your relationship.”

“I told you she’s interested!”

“Yes, and she’s not here. And, honestly, Lissa, because I love you, I think it’s a bad idea. Cuddling on the couch is fine, but not in bed, clothed or otherwise. As tough as this sounds, if you can’t marry me, we can’t do that; and you can’t marry me.

“On the other hand, you could, out of necessity, have sex with me to make a baby. That’s not likely to happen because I’ll be married and we’ll make use of my deposit, which will pay interest in a beautiful baby boy or girl!”

“You don’t want to make a direct deposit?” Clarissa asked with a smirk.

“It’s not about want to, it’s about should. And we shouldn’t. And you know it, because you know you don’t actually want to have sex with me. Well, emotionally you do, but not physically, and you’re mentally conflicted. I love you, Lissa.”