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Show house/ 418 mistake you're making. You can get married in a year or two," ie said. But I believed she d i d n ' t mean i t . I believed she atended to keep him for l i f e. "The same thing happened with your brother," Brian's other continued. "He married that vtease* Claudette, and she tepped out on him the whole time he was overzmmmmm&agkBsg.-. mmmmy in Korea. I won't l e t i t happen to you. I won't." Brian's face was l i v i d . "She's not Claudette'." jut his voice trembled uncertainly, as though he half-feared fhat she did. He glanced at me. I was on the brink of tears >r suicide. "Look, Mom," Brian t r i e d again. "I love her. She loves me. You know we sleep together. We should get narried. Even the Church says so." Her l i p s were paper thin., She did not speak as she handed him a yellow m i l i t a r y envelope. His orders. "These came yesterday." She watched him open i t, her face almost s a t i s f i e d when he nodded. " I ' l l be shipped out within three months," he said, not looking up. "We've got to get married, Mom." "When you get home from Vietnam," she intoned. "If you s t i l l want to by then." She gave me a pointed look. Amid the foment in my brain, came a fear, taking shape. What would she do i f she knew about my family? Certainly she would never l e t us get married then. And she could be truly dangerous to my family - perhaps even catalyzing a new round of persecutions. Although times were now looser, more apathetic, people in the group could lose t h e i r jobs and the good will of t h e i r neighbors. If not forced from the state °y threat of a r r e s t , they could be pushed out economically- |