Dr. Rising put his coffee cup in its saucer, and his wife said to him, “Glenna and I will clean up. Why don’t you take Gordon for a walk.”

Mrs. Rising may not have meant anything insulting by her suggestion, but the severity of her tone made it sound as if she were referring to a dog who better be taken outside before he shit in the house.

As my appreciation of Glenna’s viewpoint soared, Dr. Rising said, “It’s chilly out, Kay. We’ll go to my study.”

His study was in the southern wing of the house, but we walked right by it. Glancing furtively over his shoulder as if making sure we weren’t tailed, Dr. Rising led me down a steep flight of stairs, keyed a double-locked iron door, and flipped on the fluorescent lights. Inside, metal utility shelving sagged under the loads of canned goods and bottled water. The wicker chairs and couches had summery pastel cushions, as though after World War III everyone would adjourn to the patio to enjoy the nuclear sunset.

“Let’s have a drink,” Dr. Rising said, and unlocked a six-foot metal cabinet that was bolted to a cinder-block wall. On the cabinet shelves were crystal decanters of Rémy Martin Louis XIII cognac. Dad once gave Uncle Jerr a bottle for his birthday, remembering to tell his younger brother that the stuff went for five hundred bucks a bottle. I counted twenty decanters in the cabinet. Christ, ten times what I had riding on the Jets.

With a loving twist, Dr. Rising withdrew a crystal fleur-de-lis stopper from a decanter. He may have been an Ethical Culturist who fancied pricey cognac, but he poured it into cheap grocery-store yahrtzeit glasses, which, before they held the Rémy Martin, had contained the candles Jews light to honor the anniversary of a family member’s death.

“To the New Year,” Dr. Rising said, sitting across from me. We raised our glasses and drank. Rather, I sipped and he drank—three glasses of the 80-proof nectar to be exact. “Like to come here at night and unwind,” he said, which explained why he stayed in bed mornings with a headache. The guy was a lush.

“Had the shelter done in the summer of ’61,” Dr. Rising said.

“When the Soviets threatened us in West Berlin.”

“When President Kennedy determined that what people in my tax bracket could do for our country was install luxury caves under our cellars. Cigarette?”

Dr. Rising fished a pack of Dorals and a Zippo lighter from the pockets of his cardigan. He lit us up and said, “Mrs. Rising doesn’t tolerate smoking and drinking in the house. This shelter cost thirty thousand dollars. Thirty thousand dollars to have a drink and cigarette in my own home.”

“Makes the Rémy Martin look cheap.”

Dr. Rising actually laughed. You could credit my superb humor or the additional yahrtzeit glass of cognac he had knocked back. I voted for the cognac. After pulling out an empty Campbell soup can from under his chair, he set it on a wicker end table and said, “That’s my ashtray.”