At six o’clock that night, Mickey checked the coals in his Weber kettle cooker and then came back into his purple kitchen. He walked over and opened the refrigerator, atypically loaded with food. After leaving Hunt’s, he’d gone down to the Ferry Building, and though it was by then late in the day, the various stores there still had a selection of foodstuffs that put to shame most of the other, regular grocery stores in the city. Now he pulled out the paper-wrapped leg of lamb he was going to butterfly and barbecue after smearing it with garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper, soy sauce, and lemon juice. He brought it over to his cutting board, where he’d piled up the ingredients you really didn’t want to refrigerate if you didn’t have to: heirloom tomatoes-green, purple, yellow-bunches of Thai basil, thyme and rosemary, two heads of garlic, a lemon.

He opened a bottle of Chianti and poured himself half a juice glass full.

Grabbing his favorite six- inch carbon-steel Sabatier knife off the magnetic holder on the wall, he honed it to a razor’s edge with his sharpening steel. Then, whistling, he pulled the leg of lamb toward him and started cutting.

Five minutes later, Mickey laid the lamb out flat on the grill and covered it. Then, back in the kitchen, he took a saucepan down from its rung on the wall. He put it on the stove over high heat, throwing in half a stick of butter and some olive oil. In another minute, he’d added chopped shallots, garlic, thyme and rosemary, some allspice, and three cups of the chicken stock that he made from scratch whenever he started to get low. Some things you simply couldn’t cut corners on.

He stirred a minute more, added a cup and a half of Arborio rice and some orzo, then turned the heat all the way down to the lowest simmer and covered the pan. This was his own personal version of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat, a simple pilaf, but he liked his strategy of first making the kitchen so fragrant that it drew his roommates to the feast whether they were inclined to eat or not.

And sure enough, here was Jim following his nose through the doorway from the living room. “That smells edible.”

“Should be,” Mick said, pouring wine into another juice glass and holding it out for him. “You ready yet for some hair of the dog?”

“That was one ugly fucking dog,” Jim said, taking the glass, “but salut.” He and Mickey clicked their thick glasses and both sipped.

And then Tamara appeared in the doorway. “I’m not really hungry, but I might have a little of whatever that is.”

“We call that a side dish, Tam. It goes with the other stuff that’ll be ready in a half hour.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’ll have much, but I’ll sit with you guys.”

Mickey handed her a half glass of wine. “Whatever,” he said.

Tamara and Jim sat on the green benches on either side of the table, dipping the still-warm sourdough bread into a small bowl of extra virgin olive oil. The finished, medium- rare lamb rested under foil on the cutting board as Mickey finished cutting the tomatoes for “Donna’s famous salad” (named after an old girlfriend and early cooking influence), which was going into his big wooden bowl and was composed only of tomatoes, basil, salt, and balsamic vinegar, no oil.

When the doorbell rang, Mickey turned away from the cutting board. “Tam,” Mickey said, “you want to get that?”

She turned the knob and pulled the door open and just stood there. “Wyatt?”

“Hey, Tam.”

“I don’t…” She inhaled, then let out the breath. “I…”

“Mick didn’t tell you I was coming over?”

“No.” Another long exhale. “He knew if I’d known, I might have left.”

“Why would you have done that?”

“Because… because I don’t know. I didn’t want to face you.”

“You want,” Hunt said, “I can go now.”

“No. Don’t be stupid. You’re here.”

“I can just as easily be gone, Tam. I don’t want to cause you any pain.” He hesitated. “Mickey should have told you he asked me.”

“No,” she said. “He was right not to. He’s trying to force me to change the way I’ve been lately.”

“How’s that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Look at me.”

“You look fine.”

“No, I don’t. I look like death.”

“Death should look so good.”

She snapped at him. “Don’t bullshit me, Wyatt. If you’re going to patronize me, then maybe you really ought to get out of here.”

Hunt’s gaze went hard. “And then what? I mean between you and me. That’s just it?”

“Even if it is, what does it matter?”

“I hope you don’t mean that.” He took a breath. “It matters because, like it or not, you’re family, and I don’t have so much of it that I can afford to lose any of it. I love you, Tam. I’m always going to love you. Don’t you know that?”

Looking down, she shook her head. “Sometimes I feel I don’t know anything anymore. I thought you hated me.”

“I could never hate you. Why would I hate you?”

“Because I left.” She met his eyes. “I’m so so sorry. I just couldn’t handle”-a tear broke and trickled down her cheek-“any of it.”

“That was all right. I understood. It was fine.” Hunt brushed the tear away with a finger. “You handled what you could and did what you had to do, Tam. You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”

“No? Then why do I feel like if I’d stayed on… maybe things with the business wouldn’t have gotten so bad?”

“That was nothing to do with you. You in the office wouldn’t have made any difference, wouldn’t have brought in any clients. That’s all on me and nobody else. What’s gone wrong is because of me and the decisions I made.”

Hunt stepped toward her. “Whatever you want to do, Tam, whenever you want to do it, I’m with you. I’m on your side. Really,” he said. “Really and always.”

She dropped her head and shook it one last time before bringing her gaze up to look at him, as something seemed to break in her. “Oh, Wyatt. I’m so sorry. I’m such a mess.” And then suddenly she was in his embrace. Her shoulders let go, deep sobs racked her body, and she held on to him with all of her might.

Hunt brought his arms up tightly around her.

“It’s all right,” he whispered.

Her visible loss of weight had shocked Hunt when she’d first opened the door, and now, holding her, he couldn’t help but be aware of how fragile she’d become. He would let her cry it out.

Gradually he brought a hand up to stroke her hair gently. “Shh,” he comforted her after a time, as the sobbing abated and she was starting to settle. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

While Tamara went into the bathroom for a minute to get the swelling out of her eyes, Hunt came into the kitchen, nodded a hello at Mickey, and slid in next to Parr. “What’s a man got to do to get a drink around here?” he asked.

Parr nodded in commiseration. “He can be mighty light with a pour, that grandson of mine. I don’t know where he could have picked up that bad habit.”

Mickey, coming over with a fresh glass and the bottle of Chianti, said, “Yeah, well, what Jim here’s not telling you is that he’s still recovering from a few too many nonlight pours yesterday.”

“A rare anomaly for which I’ve already endured too much abuse from my offspring.” Parr picked up the wine and filled Wyatt’s glass, then poured a little more into his own. The two men clicked their glasses. “Mr. Hunt, it’s good to see you.”

“You, too, James. You too.” Hunt put his arm around Parr’s shoulders and drew him toward him. “You been keeping out of trouble?”

“Hah!” Mickey said.

“I had a few drinks yesterday in mourning for my friend, Dominic Como,” Parr said. “And the boy here decided he had to come drive me home from the Shamrock.”

Mickey turned from slicing the meat. “He’s leaving out the part about the bartender calling me at work, saying it was either going to be me or the cops.”