"There goes my helicopter idea. Eat your broccoli."

Ech, he thought. Especially broccoli. But cauliflower was worse and he would get that tomorrow if he didn't eat up today. He was the only baby she had now.

"Matthew called," she said, and was off with the latest from their youngest, who was at UMC and costing more than some of Uncle Sam's earlier wars. His major was Criminal Science. He wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, he said. Cash was not sure why, did not understand, but was pleased. Most kids weren't interested in their old man's work. Especially cops' kids. They all wanted to make a new world and a million bucks. Cash wasn't against doing either. It was just that the youngsters apparently believed in witchcraft, that somewhere, maybe in Washington, there was a magic button. If you were to push it, all the bad guys would get good, all the poor people would get rich, and all the starving would be fed. But the Powers had hidden it, because for some obscure reason that was to their advantage.

Talking about Matthew inevitably led to their other son, Michael. Obliquely, Annie asked, "When are you going to have John and Carrie over again?"

John Harald and Michael had grown up together, gone to college together, and had been in the war together. Vietnam. That had been "The War" to them. To Cash it was that nearly forgotten playground squabble with the Madman of Berlin. To each generation its own, he thought.

Michael Cash had not come home from his. He was still technically MIA. It was a thing between John and Cash that sometimes made them uncomfortable with one another, though they had few differences over the war itself.

"Did you hear me, Norman?"

"Sorry. It's the case."

"I asked what block."

"Eh? Oh. Forty-two hundred. Four or five places west of where you used to live."