Wendy, by the time I came along, had more or less sworn off sex, so I was a nearly holy miracle. She had become an ascetic of the suburban sort; she still poured a little whiskey into her tea and wore pastel capri pants and chain-smoked, but she also thought a lot—an overwhelming lot, she told me—about hell. Some days she’d keep me home from school to help her make her martyred saint dioramas, or pose for paintings of Saint Lucy or Saint Joan.
