How he loved her. He took up his fork and knife and told her that was very nice.

“You just have to say things you mean,” she said.

Effie went up to bed early. Henry poured himself some of Uncle George’s scotch and went out onto the front porch, feeling aroused. It wasn’t yet nine. Down at Clara’s the windows were aglow, and the sky overhead was full of trembling stars. Over there, the night would just be beginning.

Sometime later, when he’d begun to doze off, the sound of breaking glass startled him. It had come from Clara’s. He sat up to look, but couldn’t see anything. Now a car door slammed, an engine started, the red glow of taillights appeared. Then the car swung out of the drive, skidded to a stop, accelerated around the corner, and was gone.

It had been the Rolls-Royce. He’d seen it in a flash, under the streetlights on Madison.

Soon the downstairs lights went out, and a light in a window upstairs appeared. Henry looked at it for a long time until it too went out, and all the house was dark.

Effie woke the next morning in a playful mood, nuzzling and tickling him, laughing at his morning erection, which tented his pajama bottoms—but she was adamant about going to church. When he reached for her she rolled away and got out of bed, declaring that they would be late if they didn’t hurry.

“The Good Lord gives a pass for holidays, doesn’t he?” he asked.

“If you don’t want to go, don’t go,” she said, pulling her slip off over her head. Her breasts lit the room. “You’re an adult, I can’t force you.”

Outside it was warm, and a few other people were strolling about, including a young couple—like them, but in comfortable linens—who smiled and nodded as they passed. A trio of young boys ran by wearing swim trunks, and Henry desperately wanted to go wherever they were going. Instead, they entered the gloom of Cape May United Methodist Church.

The preacher was already speaking. They took a seat in the last pew, and Henry waited for his eyes to adjust. The congregation consisted of no more than a dozen people, and most of them sat apart from one another, as if they were strangers. On the walls between the stained-glass windows were plaques filled with names—sailors lost at sea, Henry imagined.