“Yeah. Thanks. Look, I’m going to take a shower, get into some clean clothes, eat a sandwich. Then I’ll be over. Any calls?”

“A ton,” she said. “But they’ll keep. Patrick, are you OK?” “No,” I said, “but I’m working on it. I’ll see you in an hour.”

The shower was hot and I kept turning it hotter, the jet blast pounding into the top of my head, water pellets drumming against my skull. No matter how lapsed, I’m still sort of Catholic, and my reactions to pain and guilt are all tied up with words like “scalding” and “purge” and “white-hot.” In some theological equation of my own making, heat = salvation.

I stepped out after twenty minutes or so and dried slowly, my nostrils still thick with the clogging scent of blood and the bitter aroma of cordite. Somewhere in all the shower steam, I told myself, was the answer, the relief, the purchase necessary to turn the next corner and get past all this. But the steam cleared, and nothing remained but me and my bathroom and the smell of something burning.

I wrapped the towel around my waist and entered the kitchen and saw Angie blackening a steak on my stove. Angie cooks about once every leap year and never with any success. If it was up to her, she’d trade in her kitchen for a take-out counter.

I instinctively hitched the towel up over my scar and came up behind her and reached around her waist to shut off the burner. She turned in my arms, her chest against mine, and I guess it’s the consummate declaration of my state of mind that I stepped around her and checked the rest of the oven for damage.

She said, “What’d I do wrong?”

“I think your first mistake was turning on the stove.”

She slapped the back of my head. “See the next time I cook for you!’

“And they say Christmas comes only once a year.” I turned from the stove and saw her watching me the way you watch a baby walking on the edge of a swimming pool. I said, “Thank you for the gesture. Really.”

She shrugged, continued staring at me, those caramel eyes warm and slightly damp. “You need a hug, Patrick?”

I said, “God, yes.”

She felt like everything good. She felt like the first warm gust of spring and Saturday afternoons when you’re ten years old and early summer evenings on the beach when the sand is cool and the waves are colored scotch. Her grip was fierce, her body full and soft, and her heart beat rapidly against my bare chest. I could smell her shampoo and feel the downy nape of her neck against my chin.

I stepped back first. I said, “Well...”

She laughed. “Well...” She said, “You’re all wet, Skid. My shirt’s soaked now.” She took a step back.

“Happens sometimes when you take a shower.”

She took another step back, looked down at the floor. “Yeah, well..., “she said again, “you have a pile of messages over there. And...” She stepped past me, picked up the steak, and carried it toward the garbage. “And...and I still can’t cook, obviously.”