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marriage, or so it had seemed to Arch. Now, he was convinced, she had sublimated whatever earthly passions she might have still possessed into a near-obsession for Willis. How else to account for the breathless quality of her letters: “The kindest, most generous, most gifted and visionary person I have ever known…,” a phrase he could still see burning on a not-so-long-ago page.
    In reply, Arch had, by his own lights, lost it. He’d run off a copy of Yeats’s “The Second Coming,” highlighted selected passages in yellow marker, had sent it off Express Mail without a covering letter. There’d been no reply from Sara.
    Now he stared doubtfully at the fat letter, wondering what exercise of Christian charity it had taken for his sister to respond. How had she finally overcome his invitation to imagine the Reverend Willis in Yeats’s context: “…what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
    Still, curiosity gnawed at him. He could tear open the letter, pitch the Willis crap without even looking at it, force himself into his sister’s letter far enough to where he’d begin to sound her soft voice in his head, forgive her for whatever claptrap Willis was responsible for seducing her into. Soon enough, she’d leave off with that part of things, say she forgave him, and get into how she was doing, what she’d been reading of “worldly” literature, he could love her once again. That’s how it usually worked with her letters, after all.
    He took another glance at the formidable stack of bills, and nodded. No contest. Commerce would just have to wait. He flipped open his Swiss Army knife, slit open the fat envelope with a blade he knew he’d ruined cutting paper, then watched a typewritten sheet flutter out onto the floor. Strange, he thought, bending to retrieve it. His sister almost always wrote her letters in longhand, just another of the old-fashioned traits that endeared her to him. He tossed the fat part of the packet aside and turned to the letter.
    “
Dear Dylan
,” he read, wincing at the name he’d managed to drive from everyone’s usage but hers. “
I am sure that you suppose I have not written sooner out of spite, though that is not the case at all. I know you don’t approve of my work, nor of my employer, and, though, you’ve never come right out and said so—don’t worry, little brother, I read you like one of your beloved books—you think I’ve squandered my life. The poem you sent along speaks eloquently in that regard. The fact of the matter is, your letter (not really a letter, though, was it?) arrived at a time of some crisis for me—and don’t worry, I am not ill, though I am confused, perhaps somewhat sick of heart. I might have contacted you sooner, but to tell the truth, I am not sure that the interpretation I find myself wanting to place on the materials I have enclosed is the proper one. But I have kept my own counsel long enough and know that I can trust you to read these documents and tell me if what I sense is of true concern. I love you, and I know, despite the miles and the many barriers that have seemed to distance us over the years, that you care for me just as dearly. I will be eager to hear from you. Your devoted Sara
.”
    Arch put the letter back on his desk, closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair with a sigh. Just what he needed. His sister suffering some kind of midlife spiritual crisis and turning to him for help. Worse yet, she must have seen some intention to undermine her faith in his sending her that poem, but his target had been that oaf Willis, not her whole way of life. God knows he didn’t have any corner on the way to enlightenment. What was he supposed to say now? Great. You finally came to your senses. Let’s nuke your whole past and start all over again? He’d be plenty happy if she just shitcanned the Reverend James Ray and went back to the publishers of
Inspirational Thoughts for Moderns
.
    He shook