With every word, Robbie’s eyes widened. He’d never seen his brother like this. He didn’t even know Adam was capable of such fatalism. Robbie stood up. “I have to get dressed to go to church. I think you should go to the apartment and stay there tonight. Maybe you’ll get some help from the spirits of Mom and Dad. Whatever you need to do, do it. Just don’t sit here and get drunk. I’m going to church to meet the lovely Lisa.”

Robbie waited until Adam was standing up before he hurried up the stairs. To tell the truth, he did not like this Adam. He wanted his bossy, domineering brother back. How could he be a rebel if there was no dictator to rebel against?

When he heard Adam start his truck, Robbie let out a sigh of relief. So who had ripped his big brother up? Vera? She could cut anyone apart. Miguel? He was a great guy. Always calm. He once told Robbie that Vietnam had shot all the anger out of him. Was that true?

The only other person there last night was Kelly. Pretty, sweet Kelly, who was followed everywhere by critters. No one could be angry at Kelly.

So what had turned Adam into someone who drank beer on a Sunday morning?

Robbie didn’t think he’d hear Lisa’s dad’s sermon this morning. He was going to think about how to fix his brother.

As Adam drove from Mason to the apartment on the Plaza, he thought about what Robbie had said. What was Vera doing on the weekends? His guess was that she was going to those anti-war rallies. Those things often turned violent and she could be hurt. Killed even.

He had a vision of standing at Vera’s grave site and trying to explain why he hadn’t stopped her from going. “She wasn’t spending the weekends with me and I suspected that she was involved in the protests, but I...” What excuse could he give? That he’d spent two days a week free from dealing with the problems of his life? He didn’t want to think about selling a place his family had owned for generations. He certainly didn’t want to think about what his little brother would do without constant supervision. Truthfully, in the last weeks, Adam had had so many problems to hide from that he hadn’t thought much about Vera.

He let that sink in. For a whole month he had hardly thought about the woman he loved. The woman he was planning to spend his life with.