“For real?”

“Literally no, but in the grand scheme of things, yes. He’s from Beatrice, Nebraska. Five hundred miles south and east. Trust me, it doesn’t look any different.”

“Was he a farmer or something?”

Iris unbanded the cards, multicoloured, with images David didn’t catch. She began to shuffle. “His parents were. They died early. I’ve only been there twice.”

“Didn’t you say he was a—shit, what’s the word? Mennonite?”

“He grew up that way. He’s not anymore. Obviously.”

“Yeah,” David said. “Was about to say I must have missed the hat and beard.”

“That’s Amish. Mennonites are different. The Amish split from the Mennonite Church in the seventeenth century. Some of the hard-core Menno sects wear plain dress, but my dad’s family didn’t grow up that way. It’s complicated.”

“Menno? You call them Mennos?” David laughed; Iris did not look amused. “Sorry. You never talk about that,” he observed. “I feel like I know a million and one things about your mom, but nothing about your pops.”

Iris did love to talk about her mom. Oldest of seven kids, grew up taking care of her sibs in New York State’s North Country. All-American, a cheerleader. Split town after high school, cannonballed through women’s studies at BU, was already tenure-track when Iris came along. “My aunts tell me money changed her, that she was different growing up,” Iris said to David once. “My aunts also love to complain.” David and Iris both carried iron admiration for their made-good mothers, for what they’d achieved and survived, believing they shared a similar special experience.

“My dad’s just a quiet guy,” said Iris. “He can be mean sometimes, about the strangest things. But he never talks about his upbringing or the church or whatever. Most of what I know’s from what Mom told me about him. Most of what I know about Mennos is from books. He went east and cut a lot of ties once he graduated.”

“But you visited this Nebraska place with him?”

An exhausted Amtrak guy swept past and opened the doors, the train’s rattle filling the car, then silence again. Iris dealt the cards. “Twice. First to visit my grandparents, second to see his older brother. His brother wasn’t a good dude. Probably still isn’t. But my dad, he told me to call my grandparents ‘Oma’ and ‘Opa.’ That was important to him. And supposedly, we have our own language? I think it’s called Plautdietsch? … Low German! That’s it in English. I heard my grandparents speak it to each other. It was beautiful. It’s sort of like regular German but doesn’t really sound like it. It was so musical, and gentle, and funny. I’ve never forgotten its sound. My dad prodded me to talk about school, then my grandma said something in that language to my grandpa and they laughed. They had the most peaceful laughter. There was nothing mean in it. But they’re dead now, and my dad didn’t learn. Anyway. Funny we’re playing this game, actually; it’s the one card game he was allowed growing up.”