I couldn’t say whether or not Mike Bailey was a good priest. He was a product of one of those big Irish Catholic families, the kind with a dozen kids, most of which give at least one son to the Army and one to the church. Mike had somehow managed to satisfy both requirements. I got the sense that he’d opted into the chaplain thing when he was still young and romantic, maybe under the influence of a charismatic Jesuit who’d filled him with dreams of emulating the heroic missions of Saint Ignatius and his followers. His idealism did not seem to have survived Fallujah.

I slowed to a stop in front of the appointed address, and the dread came on.

I reached back for the folder I’d set on the rear seat before we left. I looked up at the house, and there she was, standing behind the screen door, as if she’d sensed we were coming, as if she’d felt the life she’d brought into the world go out of it from thousands of miles away, and we were just there to confirm what she already knew.

“Let’s not keep her waiting,” I said.

She opened the door before we even reached the front porch steps. Her eyes were damp.

“Hello, ma’am,” I said. “Are you the mother of Private First Class Cody James Carter?”

“His daddy’s in the back,” she said.

We followed her through a small entry hall into a dim wood-paneled living room. On the wall over a gas-log fireplace hung a large flat-screen TV tuned to Fox News.

Mr. Carter stood when he saw us. He picked up the remote control and pressed mute. Maybe he was afraid he’d miss something.

Mrs. Carter came to her husband’s side. They stared at us, their faces anguished, waiting. In the language of the Casualty Notification Officer Module, I informed them that their son was dead.

Mrs. Carter’s face slackened. She drooped to the couch. Her husband sat down and wrapped his arm around her but remained rigid, his eyes fixed on some point between the television and the fireplace as I finished reciting the script.

Mike sat down next to Mr. Carter. I rounded the coffee table and sat close enough to touch the mother.

“Did he suffer?” she asked.

“We won’t have the full incident report for another day or two,” I said.

The father removed his glasses and set them on the table, his arm still wrapped around his wife. His face went pale, and the tears began to form, but they did not fall, as if he had somehow willed himself not to cry.

“Would you folks like to pray?” Mike asked.

They nodded.