“ ‘Dear Ralph,’ “ he began. “ ‘It is with Christian sorrow and pain of conscience that I write to you to inform you that I am returning to the United States immediately’ “ Dad looked up and said, “Somebody must have died,” then kept on reading out loud. “ At first I considered prevaricating to you about the cause of my sudden departure from the field of the Lord in which we have been co-laborers for the Kingdom. But the Lord has spoken to me and I feel that to not tell you the truth will only compound the wrong I have done/ “ This sounded bad. It sounded like Jonathan Edwards was letting plenty of light into his conscience and was about to water it a lot. And that we were about to have a lot of trouble because the Lord had spoken to Jonathan. Dad looked up at us and said, “This is very odd, what can he mean?”

Dad looked back down and kept on reading. “I have committed the sin of King David who looked upon Bathsheba and coveted her. I have looked upon your wi . . .’ “ Then Dad trailed off and stopped reading out loud and started to read to himself. As he read I watched him and I saw his face go bright red and the big vein in the side of his neck started to bulge out. He slowly stood up while reading. Mom started to stand up too. She began to edge around the end of the table so as not to be right next to him. The waiter came over to ask if we were done with the first course but no one answered because Dad s face was going purple and Mom was taking more steps away from him into the potted palms. Several guests turned their heads to see what was going on. Dad stopped reading and whispered, “This is the end.” He turned and walked to the door of the terrace and went inside and from inside he yelled, “Elsa, come up to the room! Now!”

Mom stood frozen. She was all white and she held onto the back of a chair to steady herself; she said, “Good-bye, children,” and turned to follow Dad. Then we all said at once, “No, Mom, don’t go with him!” because we knew he was really angry. Worse than ever before and it was probably dangerous and we loved Mom and didn’t want her killed on vacation.

Mom said, “I must!”

We all stood up and said loudly, “No, Mom!”

The waiter came over and said, “What ees the problema weeth the prosciutto?”

But we ignored him and Janet grabbed Mom’s arm and said very impassioned, “He’ll kill you!”

Everyone in the restaurant looked at us even more because Janet had shrieked this out pretty dramatically.

Mom followed Dad anyway. We all stood looking at each other horrified then we all ran after her.