“The nightshirt, of course! You look awful, Mama.”

“Not as awful as Daddy,” she said.

“Does this mean we don’t have to go to church?” Kip asked, bouncing a little.

Iris swung her feet to the floor and stared at her toes.

“I don’t know, darling, but I guess we’d better start breakfast, just in case.”

EVEN THOUGH SASHA WAS an atheist, the family went to church most Sundays, a habit they established when they moved to London. Sasha said it was important for the boys to have a proper religious education, so they could disavow God from a position of confidence when they were old enough to reason things out for themselves. Besides, you met a lot of important people at church on a Sunday.

So Iris rolled out of bed and trudged to the bathroom to make herself a little more human. On the way back to the bedroom, she picked up Sasha’s discarded clothes and hung them in his wardrobe. Sasha himself hadn’t moved. He sprawled on his stomach, hair in disorder, perfectly naked—thank God for the blankets. There was just enough light that she could see his face, so relaxed it was almost angelic, relieved of all its sins. Iris remembered what Philip had said last night—the hearings—and wondered why Sasha hadn’t said anything to her about them. Because he wasn’t worried about anything this woman might reveal in her testimony, or because he was?

She tucked the blanket around him and headed down the hall toward the kitchen, where the boys were making the usual joyful racket—take that, Mrs. Bannister in the downstairs flat—as Mrs. Betts flitted around the room getting breakfast. Jack spotted Iris first.

“Mama! Mrs. Betts said I could have hot cocoa with breakfast! Because it’s Sunday!”

“That sounds like an awful good idea.”

“Good morning, Mrs. D,” Mrs. Betts said cheerfully. “Coffee’s in the pot.”

Iris sat in the chair next to Jack and reached for the coffeepot. “You’re an angel.”

“I’ve gone ahead and laid out their suits for church. Master Kip’s going to need a new jacket soon, he’s grown that fast. I do believe he’ll be tall, like his father.”