He came on a Thursday evening.
The Thursday dinners had become the anchor of the week’s social rhythm — the specific regular gathering of people who had decided that regular gathering was worth protecting from the things that tried to displace it. Rosa cooked. Diana came down. Marco arrived with the specific reliability of someone who had become family without formal appointment. Helen came when she could and sent her regrets when she couldn’t. James Carver drove from Milwaukee every other week.
Frank came every Thursday.
He arrived at six-thirty with the same bottle of wine he had been bringing since September — he had found it at a shop near his apartment, had liked it, had decided it was his contribution and had maintained it consistently, which was the kind of small disciplined cons
