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City to seek his fortune without so much as a by your leave. By the summer of 1961, however, all of that was ancient history and my mother counted Emil Brandt as one of her dearest friends. Partly this was due to the healing property of time but I believe it was also because when he finally came home to New Bremen, Brandt was a very damaged man and my mother felt a great deal of compassion for him.
Mother stopped what she was doing and turned a stern eye on her daughter. Is this about Karl? You don’t want to leave your boyfriend?
That’s not it at all, Mom.
Then what is it? Because it’s not about money. We settled that issue long ago. Your grandfather promised anything you need.
My father swallowed a mouthful of banana and said, She doesn’t need anything from him.
My mother ignored him and kept her eyes on Ariel.
Ariel tried again: I don’t know that I want to go so far away from my family.
That’s a feeble excuse, Ariel Louise, and you know it. What’s going on?
I just . . . Never mind, she said and rushed to the door and left the house.
My father stood looking after her. What do you suppose that was all about?
Karl, my mother said. I never liked the idea of those two going steady. I knew he would end up a distraction.
Everybody goes steady these days, Ruth.
They’re too serious, Nathan. They spend all their free time together.
She went out with other friends last night, my father said.
I thought about Ariel sneaking off after she’d returned from the drive-in theater and I wondered if it was Karl she’d gone to meet.
My mother snatched up a pack of cigarettes from the windowsill over the sink and angrily tapped out a cigarette and struck a match and from behind a swirl of smoke said, If Ariel’s thinking that she might marry instead of going to college, I’ll be happy to set that girl straight right now.
Ruth, my father said, we don’t know anything of the sort. But it would be a good idea to sit down with her and find out what’s going on. Discuss it calmly.
I’ll calmly tan her backside, my mother said.
My father smiled. You’ve never hit the children, Ruth.
She’s not a child.
All the more reason to talk to her like an adult. We’ll do it tonight after she’s home from work.
When they were ready to drive to the Klements’ house I asked if I could go along to see Peter which meant that Jake would have to come too. My father saw no reason for leaving us behind especially in light of the constraint Jake and I were under not to go out of the yard without his permission. Jake didn’t mind going. He brought along the most recent issues of Aquaman and Green Lantern to read in the car. We piled into the Packard and headed for Cadbury.
    Mr. Klement operated a small engine repair business out of a shop that was a converted barn next to his house. His father had owned two hundred acres just outside town and on his death had passed it to his son who had neither the disposition nor the inclination to be a farmer. Travis Klement sold the arable acreage but kept the house and outbuildings and established his business there.
    We arrived midafternoon and the heat lay oppressive on the land. We parked in the gravel drive in the shade of a big walnut tree. My mother took her casserole and my father took the bowl of Jell-O salad and they climbed the front steps and stood on the rickety porch and knocked at the screen door. Jake and I hung back. From the yard we could see the steeples of Cadbury just a quarter mile north. Between the Klements’ house and town Sioux Creek crossed the road. Under the narrow bridge, on those occasions when we were able to slip away from some dull church function, we’d hung out with Peter and caught crawdads and had once observed a family of foxes scurrying into a thicket along the creek bank.
    Peter came to the door and stood behind the screen and my father said, Good afternoon, Peter. Is your mother home?
Just a minute, Peter said. He looked beyond my parents toward Jake and me in the