It was a few weeks later that I met Iris properly. I was at home. It was dinnertime. We were eating mushroom risotto, so it must have been a Monday or a Wednesday, which were the days I cooked Kate’s favorite dinner. Anna’s days were Tuesdays and Thursdays. We got a takeaway every Friday, and I grilled tuna steaks on Saturday nights because Brendan loves them. Sunday was not set in stone, although I usually did a curry, which—luckily—pleased everybody.

It’s harder than you might think, pleasing everybody. The doorbell rang and I answered it, and there was Iris Armstrong.

I was so surprised to see her, I didn’t even say hello. It was Iris who spoke first. “There she is. The hero of the hour.”

I didn’t have the faintest idea what she was talking about. “Are you going to ask me in?” she said, and it was only then I noticed the rain. Drizzle really, but unpleasant nonetheless when you’re standing at somebody’s door getting soaked by it.

“Oh gosh, sorry, I...of course, come in.”

Iris walked around the kitchen table, shaking everybody’s hand. She never mentioned the fact that we were in the middle of dinner.

“You’re a lucky man,” she said to Brendan, clapping his shoulder. “Having a woman like Terry in your life.” She smiled at him, and Brendan did the only thing anyone can do when Iris Armstrong smiles at them. He smiled back. I can see Brendan’s face even now, bright, as if it were lit by the power of Iris’s smile.

I stood at the kitchen door, at a loss as to what to do or say. I think I was worrying about feeding her. Was there enough food left over to warrant an invitation to eat with us? And whether Iris liked mushrooms. Lots of people don’t.

“You must be so proud of her,” said Iris, looking at the girls and Brendan in turn. When nobody responded immediately, she turned to me, then back to the table, put her free hand on her hip. “You didn’t tell them,” she said. Her tone registered little surprise. Even back then, before we were friends, Iris seemed to know exactly who I was.

“Tell us what?” Brendan glanced from me to Iris and back to me, and his look was sort of fearful. Maybe fearful is too strong. But this wasn’t what usually happened in our house at dinnertime. A stranger in our kitchen. Making declarations. Not that Iris was a stranger exactly. I just...well, I hardly knew her.

“Your mother saved Ted Gorman’s life today,” Iris said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t exactly say I—”

“Ted is one of the Society’s biggest donors,” Iris went on, wrestling herself out of her coat and draping it on the back of a chair before sitting down. “And today, when he was having a tour of one of our day care facilities, he collapsed, and Terry here performed CPR on him and saved his life.” She picked up a slice of garlic bread and took an enormous bite so that, for a moment, the only sound in the room was Iris’s molars grinding the crust. “I’ve just come from the hospital, and his doctor told me that if it hadn’t been for Terry’s swift action, Ted would be on a slab this evening.”