TODAY’S CROSSWORD
ACROSS 1 Pay attention 6 Golf tees 10 Headstrong 14 Mall for Plato 15 Thickening
agent 16 Inkling 17 Entices 18 NBA team 19 Grad’s garb 20 One-sided
victory 22 Destroy
documents 23 Norse king 24 Hangs around 26 DVD predecessor 29 Throw off heat 31 Chatty alien 32 Road-map org. 33 Forest ruminant 34 Wakened 38 Reclined 40 Cold and windy 42 Focal points 43 Last page 46 More than
a snack 49 Gleeful cry 50 Burr, to
Hamilton 51 Name in
cheesecake 52 “— -Tiki” 53 Morning
mugfuls 57 Jokes around with 59 Trailer rental
(hyph.) 60 Many-colored
flower 65 Keep — on 66 Belmont Stakes 67 “Uncle Miltie” 68 Gardner of
mystery 69 Church
donations 70 Hypnotized 71 Cattail 72 Hurricane
centers 73 Red-waxed
cheese DOWN 1 House part 2 Water, in Peru 3 Conflicted 4 Philosophy 5 Bothered 6 New mom’s
helper 7 Victorian oath 8 Judge’s prop 9 AARP members 10 Just 11 Be crazy about 12 Kind of rat 13 Clock parts 21 Hobbling 22 Corn holder 25 Boathouse gear 26 Glen or dale 27 “Brian’s Song”
star 28 Surprise
attack 30 Monorails 35 Marinate 36 Yodeler’s answer 37 Zoologist —
Fossey 39 Widely
scattered 41 Foible 44 Eggnog time 45 You don’t say! 47 Like the Sahara 48 Pretty beetle 53 More appealing 54 Windy City airport 55 Tale 56 Rough like a
snake 58 Trial figure 61 Pinnacle 62 Karachi language 63 Ran away from 64 Prefix for “trillion” 66 — Dawn Chong
Yes, it would be pretty terrible. The time to break a confidence is when doing so would prevent a harm greater than the betrayal itself.
The house is bought, so you can’t prevent the purchase, so your brother is getting surprised no matter what — so all you’d accomplish by meddling is to make yourself the messenger instead of your sister-inlaw. I can’t think of any way that would help, but I can envision a bunch of ways it would cause havoc.
Even if you did have standing or justification to get involved, which you don’t, it’s a bad idea to respond as if everyone would feel as you do. Your sisterin-law might have more insight than you do into what your brother wants.
Any good reason to stay out of someone else’s mess is a gift — to them if not to you — and you have at least two of the better reasons I’ve seen not to touch this drama with oven mitts. Accept the gift.