Devlin wanted to think about his answer. He had been dating Maryellen Brennan three weeks when he heard for the first time of Jim Brennan’s swordsmanship, from Devlin’s own old man, as he belched and farted through his nightly quart of brew. Brennan, Devlin’s old man said, liked to wave his dick around—he wasn’t above using his money and influence to get the women he wanted. Devlin could remember seeing through the old man’s self-righteousness to the envy beneath. To Levine, Devlin said, “Because old Jim was so blatant, people have always assumed Charlotte knew everything better, in greater detail, than anybody else, and her silence about it was part of her breeding, culture, religion, and style. Charlotte has always been relentlessly classy.”

“I don’t understand the religion thing,” Levine said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know that much about Catholicism.”

“It’s not Catholicism as much as the Irish view of it,” Devlin said. He was thinking of his father again, how he had distanced himself from Devlin’s mother’s side of the family, including the branch in Sussex County, even Devlin’s cousin Alice, a teenager at the time. Holier than thou, Devlin’s uncle Buddy, his mother’s brother, had said. “Charlotte is an Irish type. She wraps herself in her religion. Because she goes through the motions, she’s justified in everything she does, like putting up with her husband’s philandering. If she suffers—and I don’t know that she does—then she’s also relieved, even proud, because she believes God will be good to her for having never quit going through the motions, no matter what He’s thrown at her. That’s the type, what I grew up with.”

“There are Jewish types, too,” Levine said.