Please let them be okay and I promise I’ll be a better person Cahoon silently prayed.

“I heard on the news about your . . .” he started to say.

“Thank you. He had so much amputated, Sol.” Hammer cleared her throat. She sipped bourbon and was soothed by its heat. “He wouldn’t have had a quality of life, had they been able to clear up the disease. I’m just grateful he didn’t suffer any more than he did.” She typically looked on the bright side as her heart trembled like something wounded and afraid.

Hammer had not and could not yet accept that when the sun rose this morning and each one after the next, there would be silence in her house. There would be no night sounds of someone rattling in cupboards and turning on the TV. She would have no one to answer or report to, or call when she was late or not going to make it home for dinner, as usual. She had not been a good wife. She had not even been a particularly good friend. Cahoon was struck speechless by the sight of this mighty woman in tears. She was trying hard to muster up that steely control of hers, but her spirit simply could not take it. He got up from his leather wing chair and dimmed the sconces on dark mahogany that he had salvaged from a sixteenth-century Tudor manor in England. He went to her and sat on the ottoman, taking one of her hands.

“It’s all right, Judy,” he kindly said, and he felt like crying, too. “You have every right to feel this way, and you go right on. It’s just us, you and me, two human beings in this room right now. Who we are doesn’t matter.”

“Thanks, Sol,” she whispered, and her voice shook as she wiped her eyes and took another swallow of bourbon.

“Get drunk if you want,” he suggested. “We have plenty of guest rooms, and you can just stay right here so you don’t have to drive.”

She patted Cahoon’s hand, and crossed her arms and drew a deep breath. “Let’s talk about you,” she said.

Dejected, he got up and returned to his chair. Cahoon looked at her and braced himself.

“Please don’t tell me it’s Michael or Jeremy,” he said in a barely audible voice. “I know Rachael is all right. She’s in her room asleep. I know my wife is fine, sound asleep, too.” He paused to compose himself. “My sons are still a bit on the wild side, both working for me and rebellious about it. I know they play hard, too hard, frankly.”

Hammer thought of her own sons and was suddenly dismayed that she might have caused this father a moment’s concern. “Sol, no, no, no,” she quickly reassured him. “This is not about your sons, or about anyone in your family.”

“Thank God.” He took another swallow of his drink. “Thank you, thank you, God.”