Two Summers of Adjustment: Novel

By Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate

The novel Two Summers of Adjustment was written in the 1980s and rewritten in 2014/2015. It focuses on several incidents that got the author interested to write the novel. One was the imprisonment of an innocent man and how he had to adjust to life after being exonerated. The other is on separating a father from his family for over nine years and his adjustment to a now mostly full-grown family. It is not easy to fit in, as Bradford Barclay, the hero of the novel, found out.

Bradford Barclay, the major hero of this novel, faces both of these incidents. His child, Resa, a baby when he got unjustly imprisoned, was taken care of by the childs godfather, Joe Ferguson, a childhood blood-brother of Bradford. She stayed with her godfather until she was close to five years old. The connection between the child and the godfather was considerably strong, and Brad Barclay found himself in a situation where his child did not accept him as father and preferred to stay with her godfather and her godfathers son, Tim Ferguson.

The novel takes the reader through a series of incidents where both Bradford Barclay and Joe Ferguson lose their wives and find themselves the only ones trying to make life as comfortable as possible for Resa without destroying the friendship they had formed and sealed with their blood as boys. Series of thoughts of Bradford Barclay and of Resa move the story forward and explain to the reader why the individuals behave in the way they behaved at any particular time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514437858

Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate

Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate was born in Kitale of the British East African colony, today’s Kenya, and was raised until school age on a farm with the name Kalua-Estates. She received her basic education in various European countries as well as in a boarding school in Lucerne, Switzerland. Even though Lucerne is in the German Swiss, the school conducted all its classes and communications in French. Her BA and MA degrees were earned at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her Ph.D. studies were completed at the University of California Berkeley and the University of California Los Angeles. She holds an AA degree in creative writing from the Palmer Writer School, at-tended several years of memoire writing through the Monterey Peninsula College, where she had the opportunity to share her writings with fellow students, most of them outstanding writers, and bought several courses in creative writing from The Great Courses. As professor in academia, she has numerous academic as well as creative writings presented at national conferences and published in academic journals as well as in local papers. She is the author of twenty-four books, with two volumes of memoires in the final stages and a novel about a father and son moving to Alaska almost completed.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015921174

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-5144-3787-2

   Softcover   978-1-5144-3786-5

   eBook   978-1-5144-3785-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/22/2015

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Contents

Introduction

Part I The First Summer

Chapter One Havensport Today

Chapter Two Havensport Twelve Years Earlier

Chapter Three Resa Barclay

Chapter Four The First Summer

Chapter Five The Penthouse At Seagardens

Chapter Six The Yacht With The Name Little Girl

Chapter Seven Brad Has A Cold

Chapter Eight Helicopter Ride

Chapter Nine Anita

Chapter Ten The Barclay Vineyards

Chapter Eleven The Scouts At The Vineyards

Chapter Twelve Meeting Jimmy Wagner

Chapter Thirteen At A Party On Board Of The Little Girl

Chapter Fourteen The Passport Picture

Chapter Fifteen The Missing Hot Dog

Chapter Sixteen Brad And Joe

Part II The Second Summer

Chapter Seventeen In South America

Chapter Eighteen Wedding In Mexico City

Chapter Nineteen Seeing Resa Again

Chapter Twenty Letter To Papa

Chapter Twenty-One Back At Seagardens

Chapter Twenty-Two A Visit To Havensport

Chapter Twenty-Three At Cliffhouse

Chapter Twenty-Four Brad, Joe, And Resa On Cliffhouse Beach

Chapter Twenty-Five Horses At Cliffhouse

Chapter Twenty-Six The Earthquake

Chapter Twenty-Seven Brad And Diana

Chapter Twenty-Eight The Havensport Lighthouse

Chapter Twenty-Nine In The Hospital

Chapter Thirty Return To The Vineyard

Introduction

The novel Two Summers of Adjustment was written in the 1980s and rewritten in 2014/2015. It focuses on several incidents that got the author interested to write the novel. One was the imprisonment of an innocent man and how he had to adjust to life after being exonerated after several years of incarceration. The other was the separation of a father from his family during wartime and his adjustment to a now mostly full-grown family. It is not easy to fit in as Bradford Barclay found out.

Bradford Barclay, the major hero of this novel, is the incorporation of both of these individuals. His child, Resa—a baby when he got imprisoned—was taken care of by the child’s godfather Joe Ferguson, a blood-brother of Bradford. She stayed with her godfather until she was close to five years old. The connection between the child and the godfather was considerably strong and Brad Barclay found himself in a situation where his child did not accept him as a father and preferred to stay with her godfather and her godfather’s son, Tim Ferguson.

The novel takes the reader through a series of incidents where both Bradford Barclay and Joe Ferguson lose their wives and find themselves the only ones trying to make life as comfortable as possible for Resa without destroying the friendship they had formed when they were boys and mingled their blood. Series of thoughts of Bradford Barclay and of Resa move the story forward and explain to the reader why the individuals behaved in the way they did at any particular time.

It took two summers for Bradford Barclay and Resa to adjust to each other. It could have taken only one summer.

./.

Personages

Brad Barclay: the hero, Resa’s father

Joe Ferguson: the hero, Havensport sheriff

Resa Barclay: the heroine, Brad Barclay’s daughter

Bettina Barclay, née Floris: Resa’s mother

Theresa (Thea) Barclay: Brad’s mother, Resa’s grandmother

Thomas Barclay: Brad’s father, Resa’s grandfather

Fred Barclay: Brad’s younger brother, Resa’s uncle

Irene Strepson Barclay: Fred Barclay’s wife, Resa’s aunt

Raymond Barclay: Fred and Irene Barclay’s son, Resa’s cousin

Christie Barclay: Fred and Irene Barclay’s daughter, Resa’s cousin

Elizabeth Barclay: sister of Thomas Barclay, Brad’s aunt, Resa’s great aunt

Eileen Ferguson: Joe Ferguson’s wife

Tim Ferguson: Joe and Eileen’s son

Aunt Bertha: Eileen Ferguson’s aunt

Rob: a Havensport sheriff’s deputy

Mike Harper: a Havensport sheriff’s deputy

Wally: Tim Ferguson’s classmate

Aaron Reymer: Joe Ferguson’s neighbor

Doris Reymer: Joe Ferguson’s neighbor

Mrs. Ratford: renter of the Reymers’ house

Sam Tyler: garage owner/dealer on Alvarado Street in Havensport

Anita Fryer: the Barclay nursemaid

Marcia Bergdorf, née Fryer: Anita’s older sister

Stephan Bergdorf: Marcia Fryer’s husband to be

Fred McIntire: one of the four school friends still at Havensport

Carol Banks: Fred McIntire’s wife to be

Steve Roberts: one of the four school friends still at Havensport

Valencia Roberts: Steve Roberts’ first wife

Linda Meyers: Steve Roberts’ second wife

Susan Roberts: Steve Roberts’ third wife

Richard Middleton: Brad Barclay’s architectural partner and hotel manager of Seagardens

Johnny: garden elevator attendant at Seagardens

Rose: cafeteria woman at Seagardens

Stewart Franklin: senior parking attendant at Seagardens

Robert (Bob) Thomas: Brad Barclay’s mechanic at Seagardens

Roland Hamilton: security chief at Seagardens

Robert Rodner: councilman

Martin Wingham: family physician

Anna Berit: a hospital staff nurse

Darren Wright: a prominent architect

Isabelle Geary: proprietor of the cosmetics boutique at Seagardens

Diana Wright: assistant to Isabelle Geary

Jimmy Wagner: yacht-club harbor friend of Resa

Hank Wagner: Jimmy’s father

Anna Wagner: Jimmy’s mother

Rosalia: hostess at the Barclay vineyards

Pedro: Rosalia’s husband

Manuel: one of the hired hands at the Barclay vineyards

Herbert Beeler: manager of Brad’s portion of the Barclay vineyards

Herbert Meyer: the accountant at the Barclay vineyards

Irving Fleming: father of five visiting children to Seagardens

Irma Fleming: mother of five visiting children to Seagardens

Carlos: a Mexican adobe bricklayer

Senor Gonzales: a Colombian customer

Babette Josefs: housekeeper of Fred Barclay

Herb Fletcher: horse breeder at Gromar Stables in Arizona

José: Indian rodeo rider and Resa’s trainer

Ben Frances: the lighthouse keeper

Part I

The First Summer

Chapter One

Havensport Today

She sat tall and slender in the saddle. Her curly almost black hair blew in the late afternoon wind as she rode the sandy-colored mare she had named Sandy, bareback and barefoot, along the silken beach of the gentle Havensport bay. The sun had already lowered itself to kiss the top of the lighthouse in the southwest. Only an occasional sunbeam danced over her hair, giving it a golden sheen.

She rode alone this Friday afternoon as she had done so the last week, passing the small fishing village of Havensport. She rode well, purposeful, and not letting off. She rode like an experienced rider, who had to get there fast wherever she had to go, protecting the horse as she went. She was not quite thirteen and only recently had learned how to ride. Reluctantly, she had entered to participate in the rodeo tomorrow, on Saturday, as José, her trainer, thought she could. It was going to be her first attempt at the bareback and the girls’ barrel race competition. José, her Indian trainer from Tucson but born on an Arizonan Indian reservation, thought she would do all right. He was the one who had signed her up. He knew she would do fine, but her father thought it would be better not to put too much hope in winning. In his opinion she was too young, and there would be much talent competing at the rodeo grounds. She was only a beginner, having started to seriously ride merely a few months ago. There were many years ahead of her when she could prove her talent and possibly bring home a ribbon or a trophy.

She turned Sandy toward the sea, riding the briny crest at the water’s edge, where the waves reached the land in little splashes. The sea had receded to almost the spot where the smaller fishing boats lay moored to floating buoys. Riding along the coast would considerably cut short the distance she had to ride south from her house on the northern cliff to the adobe house. A covey of sandpipers, reaping the yield of the afternoon ripples, scurried toward the water as the busy hooves of Sandy galloped past them, and when the hooves dispersed splashes of water toward them, the sandpipers took to a low flight and in unison fled to the water’s edge, loudly peeping.

The first late-afternoon fog had come to the shore in small patches and then in a dense front and from there had moved further inland where it now hung low toward the north and the east in the hills, flanking Havensport. The bay lay calmly, awaiting the night fog that soon would follow and engulf it for the remainder of the night. The sand splattered harsh under the mare’s hooves as the girl sharply turned her toward the one massive dune, which rose high in front of her. As she scaled the waterfront crest of the dune, she pulled the reins taut against herself, causing the mare to rear as she stopped. The girl looked beyond the dune to the one-level adobe building, lying below, with the jutting Mexican tile roof and arched porticoes, leading three-quarters around it, as it stood surrounded by Spanish gardens of uncountable succulent plants and crooked cypress trees, twisted by the wind. She heard Jimbo barking. The old dog gave the most he could, growing hoarse in the process. But what was it that disturbed the dog? There in the driveway behind Papa’s car stood the county ambulance with its lights turning red.

The girl dug her heels into Sandy and rode down the dune. She no longer cared about the horse. She came to the adobe house breathlessly just as the ambulance was leaving, sounding its sirens harshly on its way toward town. The girl jumped off the horse and ran to the front door of the adobe with Jimbo following her, whimpering. She found the heavy Spanish doors locked. She ran to the side of the house. There was Papa’s car. She hammered with her fists against the back door. It remained mute to her hammering. She looked around, there was no one anywhere, and she ran back to the mare. Sandy reared and whinnied as the girl mounted her. The hooves tapped a frantic beat, with the girl pressing the horse to follow the sound of the ambulance to the town’s hospital.

./.

Outside the hospital, the girl dropped the reins and left the horse to itself, aimlessly clumping along the asphalt with the reins hanging loose, occasionally loudly whinnying. Left abandoned amidst cars and trucks, the mare trotted her own way, but the girl did not heed her aimlessly ambling. Instead, she rushed to the emergency entrance and down the corridor to the emergency room. An orderly held her back from pushing open the door.

You can’t go in there, Miss, he said.

I must.

You can’t.

But… Papa… she stammered.

The orderly took her to a nurses’ station further down the corridor.

Who’s she? Asked the nurse at the station.

I don’t know, said the orderly, but she insists on going in the emergency room. She just can’t do that.

It’s Papa, the girl stammered again. Get Dr. Wingham. Please get Dr. Wingham for Papa.

The station nurse came around the counter and placed her arm around the girl’s trembling shoulder.

Come, the nurse said and took the girl to a lounge, located somewhere along another corridor. Let me get you something for your feet and a wrap for your shoulders. It’s cold in here.

Don’t get me anything, said the girl. Just get Dr. Wingham for Papa.

A second nurse entered the lounge. She was an elder nurse and had been with the hospital staff for many years. She brought the girl a pair of rubber-soled socks and a shawl to wrap around her shoulders. The girl knew her and rushed toward her.

Mrs. Berit, please get Dr. Wingham for Papa.

Anna Berit took the girl into her arms and led her to the couch. She wrapped the shawl around the girl’s shoulders and handed her the socks.

Dr. Wingham is already with him, Resa, she said. He will take care of him.

Is she a relative? Asked the station nurse.

It’s her papa.

I thought, said the station nurse. I thought the sheriff doesn’t have a daughter, only a son.

Anna held Resa somewhat tighter.

It’s hard to explain, Anna said. He is still her papa.

./.

Chapter Two

Havensport Twelve Years Earlier

The story begins twelve years back when Havensport was a much smaller town than it is today. Joe Ferguson had already been sheriff of the coastal community and its surrounding counties for eight years. Immediately after taking over the sheriff station, he made it clear that he was determined to run it well and honestly, and so he did. He was a tough sheriff, strong in decisions to enforce and uphold the law, often ruthlessly, hardly within the law; he pursued those who had done wrong. He brought them in and closed the bar doors behind them, not allowing him to be swayed by any one of them, no matter how powerful they were in town or, for that matter, in the county. Those who not as yet had hardened in criminal doings received milder treatments and more understanding, and first offenders were immediately set straight by Joe himself. Hardly ever did they come back to the police station as repeaters. Joe became the toughest lawman the area had known for quite a while, at least as long as anyone alive in the area could remember. One could say, and rightfully so, Joe got his offender no matter if it was a man or a woman, a grown-up or a child. There was equality between the sexes in the sheriff’s book, and so was between ages. Whosoever committed a crime went to jail, and everybody in his jurisdiction knew about that.

Joe was a big man, standing a couple of inches taller than six feet and weighing several pounds over a comfortable two hundred mark. He had an ever-increasing middle, not so much from drinking beer but from liking too much food and getting very little exercise. He was a splendid cook and did much of the cooking at home—time permitting of course—and liked everything that could be eaten. With his paunch came an ever-decreasing hairline. He was already bald, at least on top of his head, before he had reached thirty, but neither his paunch nor his receding hairline mattered much to him. He made sure that they did not matter much to anyone else. Staunchness and baldness had nothing to do with running a sheriff’s office effectively and honestly, and Joe certainly proved this. He was a big man indeed, with the strength of several men and a mean streak to boot, at least when he was in the role of a lawman.

Off duty, Joe was gentle. His soft brown eyes already exuded warmth. He was jovial and had a way of making light of a strained situation, under which lay such a serious truth that revealed itself all too quickly to those around him that very moment. Joe excelled as a family man. His family had precedence over anything else. He lived with his wife, Eileen, and their six-year-old son, Tim, in the modest adobe building at the southwestern end of Havensport where the county started; there, where the dunes rolled south toward the massive Lighthouse Cliff, behind which the open sea roared. Many years ago, Joe’s father had built the adobe with his own hands and the guidance of Carlos, a Mexican friend, who showed him how to sunbake the adobe bricks and form the tiles Indian style by placing the soft matter over his thighs. After his father’s death, Joe moved in and took great care to preserve the house. He regularly whitewashed the adobe walls with several layers of lime to keep them from washing away in the annual rains that came with overpowering vengeance for months at a time and from being eaten away by the fog that persistently hovered over the house many hours every day. There were no fences around the adobe house or around the Spanish gardens. Joe did not believe in fences and let the gardens merge eventually with the natural landscape of sandy dunes covered with swells of sea grass and weathered cypresses and closer to the sea with carpets of ice plants, which did not grow there naturally, but Joe liked their violet-pink flowers late in spring and early summer, and he left them there. North of the adobe house and down the dunes, spread out the bay behind a gentle sheltered cove with rocky outcrops at both ends, which for many years had been operated by the sheriff’s department. Beyond all of this roared loudly the open sea, violently tearing against the land, dragging and pulling it in its constant move as several currents roared together below the lighthouse and the bulging rocks, which were no good to anyone stepping out on the rocks or living nearby.

Joe and Eileen had met at a county fair. They had been both teenagers then. She had been a rancher’s daughter from Saltflats, the nearest larger town, lying several miles inland, where the land was lush and suitable for farming. She had been showing her steer at an annual event, while Joe had come to see the animals. He had fallen in love with the tall girl in the steer contest, and the two had been married while Joe had been still at the law-enforcement academy. They had wanted a family—a big one at that—but their first child died a few weeks old, lying lifeless in the cradle one morning, which Joe had built for him. Eileen had lost two more of her babies thereafter, and not until Joe’s twenty-eighth birthday had she given birth to a boy, who lived. They had called him Tim. Tim had been the only one they could have. Eileen could not get pregnant again, which tore on both of their hearts, mostly on Joe’s heart.

Eileen had been an understanding woman; Joe’s friend, his soul mate, and she and Joe had walked together a lot those days. They had walked along the rugged shore toward the sea, where it had come rolling in over jutting rocks, tumbling downward in hundreds of rivulets. There, they had talked, where only the wind and the water heard what they had to say to one another, and possibly a bird or a flock of pelicans that at times glided by. When Eileen and Joe had left for their adobe home, they had known that their togetherness out there by the sea would keep them going again, like it always had before and always will do when they were down in spirit.

./.

It was the evening of Fred McIntire’s stag party. He was the last to get married in a group of friends that had grown up together in Havensport. They all had gone through elementary and secondary school together at Havensport, with many of them later dispersing all over the country. Only four of them continued making Havensport their home. Joe Ferguson was one of the four. The others were Brad Barclay, Steve Roberts, and Fred McIntire. Fred’s stag party was being held at Bay Hall down the Coastal Road. It was going to be a special party because the friends wanted to give Fred a firsthand send-off from his bachelorhood, which in their eyes had lasted far too long. Fred was thirty-five. He had never been married before. His marriage now would bring him much responsibility, for Fred was marrying Carol Banks, a divorcee from Saltflats, who brought to their marriage two children of a previous marriage.

Joe came to the stag part for a short moment, wanting to congratulate Fred on his upcoming nuptial. Joe was several deputies short that day and had to leave as soon after wishing Fred his best. As he left Bay Hall, Brad Barclay drove up in his new silver-toned Mercedes. Brad exchanged a wave with Joe and slightly bowed his head. As Brad closed the car door behind him, Joe was already driving out of the parking lot. Brad walked across the lot toward the hall.

Brad Barclay was Havensport’s wealthiest man, almost entirely self-made, who was still riding the wave of success. There had been an early interest in blueprinting architectural designs that incorporated most outlandish features, which led him to draw up a special plan for the purpose of modernizing a shopping center at Saltflats. Brad was a teenager when he entered the plans in the contest. The attention of prominent architects, particularly of Darren Wright, was immediately drawn to the plans of this youngster. Brad’s designs were abstract, maybe a bit too modern, but they had potential. Brad won the contest and was on his way to success as an architect. He studied architecture at an eastern university and thereafter continued climbing up the architectural ladder, with the end of his glorious success nowhere in sight.

Brad’s success was of no surprise to his friends at Havensport. They always knew he was made of the right stuff. He worked hard, always had done so. He had patience, a strong determination, and an uncanny talent in drawing architectural designs that were of a future time. They knew Brad would be successful either as an architect or as a businessman, and Brad turned out to be successful in both. While at college, he met Richard Middleton, who was a promising young architect himself and who had also studied hotel management. The two collaborated and were now drawing up the plans for a multimillion-dollar apartment hotel to be built in San Francisco’s fashionable hotel district. Brad financed the undertaking and Richard managed it. Upon the completion of the apartment-hotel complex, Richard would continue to manage the hotel, while Brad would design new plans and move to wherever they were going to be incorporated.

Brad was a man of many colors—an architect, a business manager, and a vintner. He shared owning with his Aunt Elisabeth, his father’s sister, a lucrative vineyard in the Northern California wine country, which lay many miles inland from the Pacific Ocean yet was still much dependent on the coastal climate. He and his younger brother, Fred Barclay, had inherited half of the vineyard from their grandfather. Brad purchased Fred’s portion of the vineyard. Fred, at the time of the inheritance, preferred money to being a landowner and a hard worker, getting a vineyard going. With the proceeds of the sale, Fred traveled to outlandish places such as New Zealand and Australia and the islands around both. The other half of the vineyard was in the possession of Brad and Fred’s aunt. She was the unwed Elizabeth Barclay, the only sister of Brad’s father.

Brad had good looks. Whether he was aware of that was not quite certain. But he was rugged, with a face evenly carved and a dimpled square jaw. He stood as tall as Joe but slender in built and had a full head of dark wavy hair, which at times playfully curled into his forehead. His dark eyes reflected an almost boyish glint, and his easy smile that started at the corners of his mouth and spread over his face never missed to connect with the glint of his eyes. One never knew whether Brad was kidding someone or was just enjoying himself. He seemed to be always all smiles.

Joe and Brad were the closest friends of all former classmates still remaining in Havensport. In their boyhood years, they had sealed their friendship, with Joe suggesting it, being a year older than Brad. It was the thing to do. They cut their wrists and mingled their blood and vowed to be always friends, indeed always blood brothers, never to allow anything to come between them and their friendship. They did the mingling of blood near the lighthouse monolith, where the two of them had set out to hew steps into the rocks to make the ascent to the lighthouse easier than having to climb an old iron ladder that suffered much under the layer of rust the sea air had caused. They did their sealing of friendship away from the watchful eyes of Joe’s parents, who according to Joe would have never understood. Both Joe’s and Brad’s families were of kindred stature. Both of them belonged to the few families that formed the true pillars of the community. The elder Ferguson owned the local butcher shop and did much of the butchering himself, which had an adverse reaction on Joe. Joe loved animals and could not see them hurt, far less butchered. He spent little time at his father’s butchery and instead turned toward preservation of all animals, including sponsoring the rights of people. Joe never went hunting or fishing, but Brad fullheartedly did.

Brad’s father, Thomas Barclay, was Havensport’s only pharmacist. He was successful in his profession—a studied university man, who had found his place at Havensport, which offered him prestige and a beautiful wife, Thea. Thea had taken up a social role in the community, the likes of which Thomas would have never found up north in the Barclay vineyards. Thomas gave up his rights to the vineyards, and half of it was passed directly to his two sons upon the death of Thomas’ father, the elder Thomas Frederick Barclay.

./.

A dented Ford sputtered as it pulled up next to Brad’s new silvery Mercedes. Brad stopped in the doorway to Bay Hall and turned around. He saw Steve Roberts climbing out of the Ford. Steve was the only of the four school friends still at Havensport, who came from a wealthy family that had lived in this coastal region as far back as when it was still Mexican land. The Roberts family ruled their land and business from their Casa Piñon, a massive mansion on the hill, overlooking Havensport and the entire bay beyond the cliffs to the north and the lighthouse to the south. Over the years, the family had influenced the destiny of the town, but with Steve, the family’s prestigious existence found a decline. Steve was the only heir. He was spoiled—always had been as a youngster—the first of the friends to marry when hardly out of his teens. The marriage was one of convenience, one of financial promise to the parents of both Steve and his bride, Valencia Conrad. The Conrads came from Saltflats, actually they owned most of Saltfalts. But before anything could come of this marriage to satisfy the parents on either side, the union ended in divorce. Steve went east, trying to study at a university. He earned no degree but instead got involved in a second marriage to Linda Meyers, which ended into a divorce faster than the first. Back at Havensport, Steve met Susan Laird, a woman older than he by several years, and with a considerable past, no one—at least no one in the Roberts’ family—wanted to admit knowing of it. On a whim, Steve had asked her to marry him. This brought disgrace upon the family. They reacted by doing everything possible to bar Susan from becoming the new lady on the hill and forced Steve and Susan to move into the carriage house, at the bottom of the hill. Steve suddenly felt strapped. He was not allowed by family degree to work on his family’s land or in the various Roberts’ businesses. He had little money, and out of despair, he started to drink, courting the bottle regularly and increasingly. Soon he was bent to destroy all in the process, most of all himself right after his parents. When Steve was not drinking, he was somewhere in Nevada, gambling. His debts grew insurmountably and eventually brought the Roberts family to ruin. They lost one property after another, making good on Steve’s gambling losses, and then one business after the other, until all of them were gone, and the Casa Piñon was heavily mortgaged. Steve and Susan moved out of the carriage house into a shanty on the shabbier side of Havensport. There, he was regularly picked up by Joe’s deputies for drunken disorders and taken to jail. Joe repeatedly talked to Steve, encouraging him to improve, and brought him home to Susan after Steve promised to make amends. Steve, however, did not make amends. All promises were forgotten as soon as he was back in the shanty, and family funds had run out. He had nothing to fall back on. When matters worsened, Steve came to Joe first, asking for financial support. Joe refused to give it to him. So Steve went to Brad, asking him for financial assistance. Brad gave him some money at the beginning, granted Steve would improve and get a job, but when Steve made no effort to show improvement or to look for a job, Brad turned him away the second time he came asking for financial assistance.

Since Steve was one of the four Havensport school friends still living at Havensport, they had no other choice than to invite him to Fred McIntire’s stag party. They hoped that he would not come, but there he was, already intoxicated and unkempt; his clothes crumbled; and he was reeking of manly odors. He carefully worked his way across the parking lot, and Brad assuredly smiled at him and placed his arm around his shoulder, giving him a pat as the two walked into the hall. Inside, someone asked Brad to put a damper on Steve’s drinking and to keep him from causing a scene, and Brad promised he would do so to his best.

When friends—longtime moved-away—Brad had not seen for years came and asked him about his future plans in modernizing American cities with his extraordinary architectural skills, Steve was out of Brad’s mind. It was not until much later that Brad went looking for Steve and found him blind drunk.

Hey, buddy, said Brad, I better get you home.

Steve insisted on staying. He still