A strand of hair was tickling his cheek. Rina would have liked to tuck it behind his ear, but didn’t dare do it. The gesture would have been way too intimate. “You’re pale, Bram. Would you like me to drive?”

“No, I’m…” He sighed. “Why would anyone want to hurt my dad? He didn’t have an enemy in the world.” He tried to bite his nails. Nothing left to gnaw on. “My mom’s acting stoic. I’m worried.”

“Maybe it’s her way of grieving?”

“No. Being a priest, I’ve dealt with grief umpteen times. But this doesn’t seem normal. She’s too…detached.” He paused. “In truth, she’s acting stoned. Could be the sedatives we gave her last night. She had been hooked on them in our early years. You knew that.”

“Actually, no, I didn’t.”

“I didn’t tell you?”

“Never.”

“Must have slipped past me. Maybe it didn’t come up because she was off of them when we knew each other.” Bram rubbed his eyes. “When we were growing up, my dad was never home. And I mean never except for Sunday morning church. Then we’d go to the afternoon picnics, and he’d go back to the hospit—Now I know you’ve heard all this before.”

“It’s been a while. Refresh my memory.”

“Nothing to say except basically, she raised six kids by herself—three boys at one sitting. It was too much for her. She needed help. With her Fundamentalist beliefs, secular therapy was out. And back then, they didn’t have Christian counselors.”

“What about her church pastor?”

“No, she would never embarrass Dad like that. How could the wife of Doctor Azor Moses Sparks possibly have any problems. To the outside world, she was the model mother. Strong, solid, a firm churchgoing woman. And most of the time, while I was growing up, I viewed her that way, too. Like most mothers, she was our family anchor.”

Wasn’t that the truth. Rina nodded.

“But she had another side,” Bram continued. “Scared, frightened. Left alone in an empty bed most of the night. She had a hard time falling asleep. She turned to pills. Barbiturates. You know how they work. At first, they knock you out so you do sleep. Then, your body acclimates. You either take them or you bounce off walls. And with six of us, she did her fair share of bouncing. On the outside, she could maintain. But there were times…her mood swings…they were sometimes very hard to deal with.”

“Why didn’t her doctor wean her off the medication?”

“What doctor? She got the pills from my father.”

Rina held back surprise.