“That’s the ticket. Good boy.” Sasha plopped into the chair and reached for his coffee cup. A cigarette trailed from his left hand. He wore a creased dressing gown and his hair was rumpled like a pile of old straw; he smelled of bed, of perspiration, of booze, of worry. It was a smell Iris had come to associate with him ever since the war ended, as if the absence of a real enemy had evaporated his vital spirit. On the other hand, here he was—up and out of bed, drinking coffee with his family when any ordinary man would sleep the entire morning off. So there must be something left of him still, right? The man she loved.

Iris handed him the cream. “Church today?”

Sasha looked at his wristwatch and swore.

THEY ATTENDED SERVICES AT St. Barnabas, just around the corner on Addison Road. As Sasha pointed out, the Anglican church was just about the same in character and temperament as the Episcopal church in America, in which both of them had been raised, so their immortal souls shouldn’t be materially damaged by the experience. Iris had asked him what exactly he meant by immortal soul, since he didn’t believe in God, and he told her to be a good wife and not ask so many questions. At the time, she thought he was only being ironic.

Iris wasn’t sure whether she believed in God or not, but she experienced the Sunday services at St. Barnabas in a different way than she used to experience church at home. For one thing, when Iris was a child, they hardly ever went to church, rallying themselves for Christmas and Easter and weddings and funerals but not for the ordinary, quotidian rites. Churchgoing was a social obligation, undertaken against your personal inclinations, not a spiritual wellspring. When Iris had attended church, she hadn’t paid much attention, and when she did pay attention, the words floated past her ears like a pleasant music.

Now Iris had Kip and Jack, and raising children seemed to have unplugged some emotional drain inside her. When the priest offered her the wine and said The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation, she sometimes had to hold back sobs. Ridiculous! Then he laid his hand on Kip’s blond curls and said, Christ’s blessing be upon you, and the tide of desperate gratitude nearly choked her.