Making Angels Laugh

by Woods, Karen

  “I can understand that.”

  “What is between us is different than that. I’m trying to make sense of it, trying to deal with it.”

  “I suppose that’s true. This is definitely different… I am older than you.” Then he became solemn, “When I’m seventy, you’ll be fifty-six.”

  “And we would have grown children by then, and perhaps grandchildren, if God wills.”

  “So, will you marry me?”

  “I’m not saying ‘no’, but it’s an important decision. Can you give me some time to think and pray about it?”

  “What specifically are you going to think and pray about?

  “Marriage is something I intend to do only once in my life. It’s a major life decision. I want to be sure the person I marry is going to be able to help me work out my salvation, to make a good Christian home with me, and to be a good parent to our children raising them to be both devout Christians and productive people,” Rita said.

  “Yes, that is how I feel about marriage, as well. It’s important to me. I am quite serious about wanting you to be my wife.”

  “You don’t even know me, nor I you. Not really.”

  “We will come to know one another well. As you said, it is like looking in a mirror. We know the important things about one another already. We’re both Orthodox who are serious about our faith. We’re both considered to be brilliant and hard as diamonds, in our own ways. You are more brilliant than I am, academically. I didn’t graduate high school until I was fifteen, college at seventeen, med school at twenty-one. I finished my residency at twenty-four, surgical fellowship at thirty-one. And my Ph.D. is in anatomy and physiology. I finished the dissertation during my fellowship. I also hold a Master’s degree in Divinity, having done most of the work on that degree by challenging the seminary for the credits.”

  “That doctorate in anatomy is a good thing for a surgeon, especially a surgeon like you, to have.”

  “I thought so. Besides, it was fun to do. Like you, I challenged the department for most of my coursework.”

  “I wouldn’t have had the patience for coursework.”

  “As you said, it is like looking in a mirror, Rita.”

  “You’ve been here as head of your service for three years?”

  “Yes, I was recruited to head trauma surgery three years ago. We’re both seen to be formidable by our co-workers and underlings. And we both genuinely like one another.”

  She chuckled. “You make an assumption, Doctor.”

  He took her hand in his. Even that innocent of a touch had her heart racing. “Is it a false assumption? Your pulse races when I touch you. As mine does.”

  “I didn’t say that it was false,” she teased, smiling at him.

  “We could make a successful marriage.”

  “Perhaps. Let’s talk to Father Yuri and seek his counsel on this. He knows both of us, fairly well. If he gives us his blessing to marry, then we’ll ask the bishop for his blessing and make the arrangements. But right now, I have my shift in cardiology to get to. And you have residents into whom to throw the fear of Andrei Zornov.”

  “What makes you think they need me to throw fear into them? Are they not wise enough to be afraid on their own, just hearing my reputation as a devourer of the foolish?” he teased with a broad smile.

  She laughed. “Then again, I see a side of you they never will.”

  “That, my dearest, is the absolute truth.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Rita?” Marian asked, breaking into Rita’s memories. “How did you meet your husband?”

  Rita sighed and shook her head, “I was moonlighting in the ER during my fellowship in Cardiology. I placed a call to the trauma surgeon on duty that night because we had a case for him. Then all hell broke loose with another patient, initially presenting with cuts from a bar fight, freaked out, punched out the resident who had been stitching him up, and took a hostage, holding a scalpel to the throat of one of the nurses.”

  Rita looked around the table. She definitely had their attention. She continued, “The attending called security. But, as the patient was dragging the nurse toward the door, I knew I couldn’t let him take her out of the unit. I saw the terror in her eyes and the madness in the eyes of the patient. Chances were good that she would be killed as soon as he didn’t need her. And I couldn’t risk that. So I intervened and stopped him.”

  “I doubt it was that easy,” Marian dismissed.

  Rita took a sip from her water. “It wasn’t easy, but wasn’t particularly hard. Amy, the nurse, kept her head about her and managed to break loose from him. Dryusha walked into the department to see me, quite literally, wrestling the assailant face down to the floor after the assailant came at me with the scalpel with which he had threated the nurse.”

  “You wrestled an armed violent mental patient to the floor?” Marian stated, her voice full of horror. “Do you have any idea how risky that was?”

  “Not so risky. I knew what I was doing. And it needed to be done.”

  Jim urged, “Go on with the story, Rita. I never get tired of hearing about this.”

  “This is only the second time I’ve told you the story,” Rita replied.

  “True, but Jack came back from your wedding and told us,” Jim said. “Continue. You were wrestling the patient to the floor.”

  “As I sat on the combative jerk and tried to bring him under control, my future husband asked me, ‘Do you need assistance, Doctor?’”

  “Sounds like a man,” Kathy teased.

  Marian laughed. “Doesn’t it, though.”

  “Now,” Kevin asked, chuckling, “no need to be nasty… Go on, Rita.”

  “I was sitting on this hostage taker. I had both of his arms twisted behind his back. It took everything I had to keep him under control. Dryusha gave the patient a shot of a strong sedative, as my hands were literally full, then he went to see his patient. By the time that Dryusha had finished with his evaluation, the man I was sitting on had calmed down. Staff and I put the assailant on a gurney and in psych restraints. The resident he’d assaulted had not finished stitching up the gash in the hostage taker’s head. So I closed the wound. Dryusha came back through, told me I’d done a neat job on the sutures and invited me to coffee after my shift. I was too tired for that. So I took a nap in the doctor’s lounge. When I woke up, Dryusha had prepared a lovely lunch for us. He proposed marriage while we were eating.”

  “Dryusha?” Marian asked. “You’ve used that word several times. What does it mean?”

  Rita smiled and shook her head. “A diminutive of his name… Like calling Andrew, Drew, in English.”

  “So, you met over the prone body of an attacker? How did your romance develop?” Marian asked.

  “Rather quickly, actually. We both talked to our mutual confessor, who thought us well suited to one another. Our bishop had been urging Dryusha to marry so that he could be ordained and join the staff at the Cathedral.”

  “I thought priests had to be single,” Marian observed.

  “In the Orthodox Church, married men can be ordained to the diaconate and priesthood, provided a few conditions have been met. Single men can also be ordained. But no man once ordained can ever contract a marriage. Bishops, on the other hand, must be celibate. Those can be never married men or widowers. Occasionally, in the centuries since the Church decided that it was best for bishops to be celibate, a married man has been elected to be a bishop. When that has happened, the wife has released him from his obligations to her and has become a nun.”

  “So, it was a whirlwind romance between you and your Dryusha?” Marian asked.

  “Yes. We were married only a few short weeks after we met, on the Sunday after Pascha, Easter, that year in a simple and low key Sunday afternoon ceremony, or as low key and simple as Orthodox weddings can be, which really isn’t, especially among the Russians. Natalia Denisova, my late mother-in-law, may her memory be eternal, took charge of the guest list for the ceremony as well as the
reception details, making the church standing room only.”

  “Are Russian churches really anything else than standing room only?” Em quipped with a laugh.

  Rita chuckled. “True enough. We tend not to have pews,” she agreed.

  “Jack said he danced with you once in a fairy tale reception,” Kevin said.

  “Fairy tale reception, indeed. My mother–in-law hosted a lavish dinner dance reception in a hotel ballroom following the wedding. Natalia, may her memory be eternal, never did anything on a small scale. We had hundreds of guests at the reception, most of whom I did not know, but she did. All the movers and shakers, the politicians, the rich and the powerful. It was quite the gleaming affair, with a lovely write up in the society pages of all the papers of note. But honestly, I would have been happier with a smaller party and less glamour. That’s not my style.”

  “Jack remembered your wedding,” Em said. “He said it was amazing. When we were planning our own wedding, he spoke of yours. It was a hard thing to live up to.”

  “He didn’t stay long at the reception. We got one dance and he had to dash back to his residency.”

  “Jack borrowed the money for the plane ticket from his mother, because he was dead broke. All he gave you for a wedding present was a card,” Em said on a sigh. “He always felt guilty about that.”

  “There was no need for him to feel guilty. I had just three people of my own at my wedding: my mother; Janet, who was my roommate during my residency, who is now my practice partner; and Jack.”

  Kevin interjected, “Kathy and I were too busy with our twins and trying to make a living.”

  “I know. And I wasn’t intending a complaint. No one can go to every wedding to which he is invited. Anyway, the rest of the people at the wedding were Dryusha’s friends and relatives, our work acquaintances from the hospital, and some people we knew from Church. Trust me. The card and his presence were far more appreciated than the eleven assorted silver bowls, twenty silver trays, and thirty pair of silver candlesticks, we received,” she replied with a laugh. “And far more useful.”

  “Thirty pair of silver candlesticks?” Kathy echoed.

  “Natalia’s friends thought those were appropriate gifts for a newly wedded couple. There were more elaborate gifts. One of my husband’s uncles gave us a house in Colorado, in a ski community he built. We spent a couple of weeks there every winter skiing.”

  Em said, “It is a beautiful place. That’s where Caroline learned to ski. We were so grateful that you invited us out there as many times as you did.”

  “We were happy to have you.”

  “You could afford to keep the house open, even though you were there only a couple of weeks out of the year?” Jim asked. “That had to have been expensive.”

  “For most of the ski season, we leased it out. The house paid for itself. His grandmother gave us a house in Jamaica. We used it as a base for scuba trips and, again, leased it out when we weren’t there. It also paid for itself.”

  “You were given two houses as wedding gifts?” Kevin asked, in disbelief.

  “Three houses. His mother gave us the family home in the Hamptons, with the proviso that she would retain a life estate in the place.”

  “I’ll bet that was an adjustment, marrying into the upper crust,” Marian observed.

  “You know the joke that the upper crust is just a bunch of crumbs held together by dough?” Rita teased.

  Everyone chuckled.

  In concern, Jim asked, “And was that true of his family?”

  “Let’s just say that my mother-in-law was not thrilled to have a daughter-in-law who chose to work, instead of keeping busy engaged in good works and being the hostess of the year.”

  “I can’t imagine you as a social butterfly,” Jim said.

  “No. I made it clear up front that I had no intention of spending my life being on this or that committee, raising funds for causes, no matter how good they were. It’s a good thing to support the arts and social service charities, don’t get me wrong. Society is far richer because of the women who spend their lives raising funds for such organizations. But I was a physician and my call was to save lives. Which was what I intended to do.”

  “Made raising children interesting,” Kathy said.

  “Raising children is always interesting whether a mother stays home or works outside the home. When the boys were small, I taught medical students, teaching and seeing patients in a clinic setting in the afternoons and evenings, until the boys were school aged. Once the boys were in school, I worked full time. Both my husband and I tailored our working hours so we, at least one of us, were always at their school and sporting events. We would have had household staff whether I was working or not. That was simply the expectation in my husband’s family. He had a live-in cook/housekeeper when we met.”

  “What degree of black belt do you hold and in what form of martial arts?” Kevin asked with a chuckle, changing the subject. “I can’t believe you’d study anything without becoming an expert.”

  She laughed. “You know me too well, my friend. I’ve studied Krav Maga.”

  “Why would you study the official hand to hand combat style of the Israeli Defense Force?” Marian asked, genuinely curious. “Why not something more common like Judo, Karate, or Tae Kwan Do?”

  “Krav Maga doesn’t have the rituals and katas of the other forms. It’s immensely practical. Many police forces and armed services around the word use it because it is so practical. Krav Maga focuses on self-defense from hand to hand and weapons, on fitness, and on how to fight effectively,” Rita replied. “It’s what I wanted; plain, effective, self-defense, without either the dance or the mysticism.”

  “You didn’t answer me about the level of your achievement,” Kevin replied.

  “I am an instructor. I’ve been an instructor since my third year of medical school. I’ve had training in everything from hand to hand combat, weapons, staff, to carjacking defenses. I teach two classes a week in basic self-defense.”

  “At your clinic?” Marian asked.

  “Part of the program of sending the clients home with better habits.”

  “That’s part of what the article said,” Kevin replied. “That the women patients at the clinic get classes in everything from healthy gourmet cooking to estate planning to self-defense and they are pampered in a spa like atmosphere with certified physical trainers, certified massage therapists, physical, respiratory, and occupational therapists, registered dieticians, licensed psychologists, spiritual counsellors, and some of the top cardiologists in the country.”

  “What about the men patients?” Marian asked.

  “The clinic is geared to the needs of women…We don’t take men patients. But I’d rather talk about all of your lives than my work. It’s not really all that exciting.”

  Em chuckled, “None of our work is all that exciting.”

  Rita offered, “No, Medicine isn’t all that exciting. Are you still running the hospice?”

  Em sighed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “No. I resigned from the job, effective yesterday. Since Jack… passed away, I just rattle around in our empty house. I sold his practice and my house to two kids who have just finished their residencies. We closed on that this morning. They’ve already taken possession.”

  “That was a quick sale,” Rita observed.

  “I made them a good, but fair price. And they are motivated to be in a mostly rural area so that they can get their student loans written off over a period of years. I need to get away from here. I’m not real sure what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I have options. But I need time to think and pray about them,” Em said.

  “Of course you do,” Rita replied. “I’m just surprised you sold out. Jack loved this area.”

  “Yes, he did. Jack felt a great connection to this town and its people,” Em allowed, with more than a trace of bitterness in her voice.

  Jim chuckled. “So, Em, tell Margarita what you’re going to be doing fo
r the next few weeks. She’ll get a kick out of that.”

  “They think I’ve gone off the deep end,” Em confided.

  “It can’t be that bad,” Rita said.

  “I’m flying from St. Louis to California tomorrow morning, my flight leaves at ten. I’ll be spending some time with my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. Then I’ll be going to a women’s monastery.”

  “For a retreat or for life?” Rita asked.

  “That rather depends on the abbess,” Em replied. “My hope is that I’ll be asked to stay.”

  “Before I married, I wanted to be a nun. Went to several monasteries, and was never invited to stay. And Vladika thought my running a medical mission out of a mobile clinic was too controversial a path for a nun,” Rita said. “I still think about accepting tonsure, as my current bishop is urging me to do so. I life a fairly monastic life now, this trip that my family forced on me notwithstanding.”

  Em smiled. “You would be a good nun."

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever been a good anything... Taking tonsure alone wouldn’t change that in any measurable way,” Rita allowed. “I’m still the flawed and somewhat arrogant person I’ve always been. In many ways, med school accentuated that natural arrogance. A habit and a tougher standard for my life as a monastic isn’t going to magically change me into a saint. All it would really do is make me more likely to fail, as the standards would be higher.”

  “I can’t see you particularly liking people making plans for you as they did on this surprise trip,” Jim said. “I can’t see that, at all.”

  “Honestly, I didn’t like it at all. But Janet, my practice partner, needs a vacation. She was adamant I had to take mine first, I didn’t have much choice. It was blackmail, pure and simple. I didn’t want to watch them stubbornly put off their much needed vacation. Then there is the fact that Mama and the boys all conspired in this. It means so much to them. I couldn’t throw the gift back in their faces, even though it meant coming here to the reunion, before going on to the rest of it.”

  “Your mother is still alive?” Kathy asked.