Amy's still not used to it.

Her Sunday morning ritual used to involve skipping Sunday morning entirely, ambling downstairs around noon, and pretending to read the paper while digging into the un-reheated leftovers of Saturday night's takeout. Now her Sunday morning ritual involves, well, actual ritual. She's there every week at ten o'clock (they can't seem to make it out of the house before that), and every week at 10:45 she feels a little thrill of relief when she hears "Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord."

She still argues with the priest in her head, too, but she's become much better at not making faces. Fidgeting is something she hasn't quite conquered yet, but at least the standing and sitting and kneeling gives her something to do. Trying to settle a four-year-old sometimes gives her a method of camouflaging her own restlessness, but as a result of a series of canny parent-child negotiations, most of the time Gracie is frustratingly serene. Amy wonders where she missed a step in her own bargaining, and considers it sort of unfair that she's not allowed to bring a coloring book of her own. If the two of them succumb to boredom and start playing or having a quiet conversation, a stern look from Bruce is usually enough to make either of them behave. At least until the corner of his mouth lifts, and he reaches over to tickle Gracie's knee, and Gracie giggles into her mother's ribs, and then Amy's making faces again.

Gracie does all her sitting, standing, and kneeling on the seat of the pew, her church shoes clunking against the wood. Sometimes her father carries her with him when he takes Communion, and sometimes she stands up and watches him join the line that winds down the aisles, to the altar, and back.

Amy's not used to the dried palm that's been looped around the knob of her daughter's bedroom door for a week, or the way it rustles faintly when she brushes past. But it doesn't bother her, and that's the oddest part. Maybe because it's like a badge of honor, a reward for making it through what she always forgets-though she's been every year for three years now-is the interminably long Palm Sunday service.

Her real reward, every week, is the trip to the Italian bakery after mass, with a stop for coffee on the way. This is what's called, in a joke that stuck, "Mommy's church." Gracie gets to pick out six cookies just for her, and Amy leaves with a box full of more pastries than her entire family could ever eat in a week (and every week, they eat them).

But that's on an ordinary Sunday, and that's not today. Right now, it's 9:45, and her family is waiting for her on the porch while she crouches down to grope under the bed for one small, white patent leather left shoe. She reaches it, knocks her head on the bedframe, says, "Jesus Christ!" and races downstairs.

Outside, Lauren and Gracie are arguing about the necessity of wearing shoes at all, while Rebecca attempts to fix her squirming little sister's hair, currently arranged in one thick braid and one curly pouf. Gracie breaks away and runs to Papa Ignacio for sanctuary, but Grandma puts a quick halt to that. Maxine speaks a few stern words that Amy can't hear, tugs at the skirt of the little white eyelet dress, and untwists the pink satin ribbon around the waist. The outfit had come with tiny, adorable, ridiculous white gloves that Gillian and a Gillianesque saleslady had badgered Amy into purchasing. For a few minutes the whole tableau had been heart-tuggingly precious, it was true, but the gloves had ended up collateral damage in a daring early morning Easter basket raid that had left no chocolate bunny survivors.

Now it's ten before ten on a crisp spring morning. She is forty-six years old, and she has started her life all over again in a strange new configuration. Her beautiful, unexpected husband picks up her beautiful, unexpected daughter. Amy has one small white shoe in her pocket, and Bruce's left hand around her right as they follow their family down the porch steps, and into the sun.