Gertrude Perec, also near the front, was next to the banker I’d met on Thursday at the clothing drive. Cady wasn’t with her. At first I thought she hadn’t come, but I finally spotted her in the sea of choir members. The red robe didn’t suit her copper hair and freckles, but she was talking happily with her seatmates.

Lisa Carmody, Riverside’s associate pastor, was the only other person I recognized. When a short, stocky man with graying hair got up to start the service, the program told me he was the senior pastor at Riverside, Theo Weld.

It was a long service, as both choirs were offering anthems. Bernie was restless: we needed to be up and moving about, not sitting through some Protestant idea of worship. I hushed her so sternly that she actually subsided.

Bayard Clements preached on the prelude to Thanksgiving: We were suspended between the Day of the Dead and the offering of thanks, and what did we propose to do about it? He was a good preacher, but my attention wandered, especially during a detour through the wise and foolish virgins.

It gave me a chance to study the church windows. The stained glass seemed to be a combination of biblical stories and the Riverside Church’s narrative—pioneers on the prairies, a hand holding a cup of water to a slave in chains, the same hand holding a cup of water to Jesus on the cross. It was almost noon when the service ended.

“Now do we question people?” Bernie demanded.

“Now we talk to people. No one is going to reveal anything to a stranger, especially not one whose idea of subtlety is to knock someone into the boards.”

Bernie shrugged. “It often works.”

“Do you want to wait in the car with Peppy? If not, show the manners that I know Arlette taught you. These are older people who should be treated with respect.”

The tide of worshippers carried us to the parish hall, where coffee and snacks were laid out. I was thankful that they had cheese and hummus amid the requisite cakes and brownies—I hadn’t had breakfast, and hunger was starting to be my dominant feeling.

Nell Albritten was sitting at one of the round tables that dotted the room, her grandson next to her. When I went to pay my respects, Bernie stayed at the table, helping herself to an astonishing number of muffins. Members of the St. Silas congregation moved closer to Albritten, protecting her. Among them I saw Phyllis Barrier, the head librarian. I almost didn’t recognize her in her church clothes—at the library she wore casual trousers and knit vests or cardigans. Now I realized she’d been one of the women in Albritten’s photo of St. Silas’s 150th-anniversary celebration.