The Devlins entered the church, Buddy disappearing again. When he slid into the pew, the smell of bourbon around him was that much stronger. Halfway through the service, Buddy muttered something about Alice’s belly. Devlin didn’t hear his words, but his mother did, and she leaned in her son’s direction.

“Get my brother out of here before I kill him.” When Devlin hesitated, she said, “Go. Get him out before he ruins everything.”

“Anything to get out of this whorehouse,” Buddy seethed, and turned toward the aisle.

Out in the sunshine, Devlin grabbed Buddy’s arm. “What did you mean back there?”

“Fucking bitches,” Buddy yelled. “The one standing there so proud of her daughter, the daughter thinking the whole travesty is perfectly acceptable, wearing white with her gut halfway to Cleveland, the bridesmaid’s somewhere in Akron …”

There it was again, Devlin’s gut turning to ice. He was counting months as quickly as he could, comparing Pamela’s shape with Alice’s. Alice had told him she was racing to the altar. If her baby was due in the next month, it had been conceived in early summer … Pamela could have become pregnant—when? She had growled like a dog, hadn’t she? Devlin’s mind raced down corridors it had never known before. During the winter his guilt had withered, and he had had sexwith two other girls, and he loved his freedom and prospects.

The reception was a big country buffet and a 45 rpm record player loaded with records by Vic Damone, Eddie Fisher, Patti Page, Tony Bennett, and Hank Williams, who made the New York City contingent writhe. Alice wanted to dance every dance, and when she got Devlin on the floor, she wanted to know what had happened to him during the ceremony.

He motioned to their uncle Buddy, who was now in a corner, unconscious, seated, his head resting against the rough plaster wall.

“Who baby-sat who?” she asked. “Dance, asshole. If that jerk I just married sees me rubbing bellies with every man in the room, maybe he’ll realize he still has to pay attention to me.”

Her stomach made Devlin feel a jolt of fear for her. Women died in childbirth. Fewer and fewer of them, but it did happen. He was terribly uncomfortable now, and she told him that he was dancing like a wooden soldier.

“Pamela, uh, look, uh …”

Alice laughed at him. “I was wondering if you were going to say anything. That’s what she got for Christmas last year, and she doesn’t know who gave it to her.”