I was leaning up against John’s Pontiac and drinking a paper cup of coffee when Milo came down to meet me.

“What’s up, Mr. Rawlins?” he asked me.

“You wanna meet your niece?”

“You guys live here?” Milo asked as we strolled down the blue-brick path of Brighthope Canyon. “I mean, this is like a rich man’s neighborhood.”

“You can’t have one rich man without a hundred poor standing right behind him,” I said, quoting the long-ago philosopher Sorry.

For some reason the quote silenced the young uncle.

The door to Roundhouse was locked. This I took as a good sign, giving me hope for no sensible reason whatever.

I used my key and we walked in.

“Feather!”

“Yeah!” she hollered from upstairs.

I realized that Milo had yet to cross the threshold.

The two dogs, yellow and black, came out barking, already a perfectly calibrated guard team.

Beyond the yelps and woofs I could hear Feather’s fast feet on the third floor.

“Come on in, Milo,” I said to the suddenly shy hippie.

He sidled left and right before putting a foot forward. As he came into the raised foyer Feather hit the top step of the first-floor stairway. He’d made it two paces into Roundhouse and Feather was halfway down when they beheld each other.

From this first encounter I knew that I’d made the right decision. They bore the same expression: eyes wide with mouths slightly agape. They’d stopped moving and started feeling.

“Milo,” I said, “meet Feather. Feather, this here’s your uncle.”

The dogs went silent and retreated toward the koi pond.

Feather descended and Milo stepped up. When they came into proximity Milo put out a hand that Feather grabbed by the wrist. She pulled him into a filial embrace, holding on tight.

When they finally let go Milo just looked at her, amazement across his face.

“What?” Feather asked.

“You,” he said. “You look just like Robin did, like your mother did when I was a kid.”

“Should I go upstairs and make breakfast?” I offered.

“Come on, let’s sit near the pond while we wait,” Feather told her uncle.

That day, after the troubled early morning, was an oasis, far away from the Kilian job. Feather taught her uncle Milo how to swim. He showed her a family photograph album with pictures that included her mother and went all the way back to her great-great-grandparents who’d migrated to the U.S. from northern England before the Great War.

Breakfast and lunch were huge meals created by me and devoured by youngsters who had been starving for each other’s company for what felt like forever to them.

“Why does my grandmother hate me?” Feather asked Milo in the middle afternoon.

We were all, humans and dogs, sitting around the koi pond. I hadn’t thought about Eddie Brock or dead Craig Kilian in hours.