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The hand healed decades ago but the stove still burned in his head. Since he was eight, he never touched a stove again. He didn’t cook. He ate a lot of cold cuts during the last thirty years. And cereal. But nothing hot at home, ever.

Mark liked to play it safe. People made fun of him, but he didn’t care. He knew pain and didn’t want an encore. And those other people who teased him were no wiser than Mark himself. Possibly less.

Louise tried to gently reintroduce cooking with a sisterly concern and sensitivity. “Mark,” she said. “I understand the pain and the fear. But you are no longer eight. People cook every day without injury. You can, too. It’s time—no, past time—for you to move on.”

Mark gave a wan smile. It was his sister, after all. But he would not cook. To demonstrate the harmlessness of cooking, Louise made him dinner using his dormant oven. She lit the burners with a match and quickly heated pasta and sauce. It tasted good, Mark admitted. But he still would not cook.

Louise had her own issues. In fact, everybody has issues.

Louise’s hot stove was men. She’d been hurt once—badly—and so she permanently gave up on men except, perhaps, as “just friends.” Friends can hurt you, too, but they don’t leave you at the altar.

That didn’t stop Mark from trying to fix her up with a nice guy, in a brotherly helpful manner. He tried six or seven times and was running out of single friends.

This would be his last try. Mark persuaded his friend Alex, actually just an acquaintance, to come to his place to meet his sister over dinner. Mark hadn’t thought it through, however, and realized that he had to come up with dinner. Ordering food from outside didn’t seem appropriate. Mark would have to cook. There was no graceful way out.

He was a bit panicked but decided to turn his attention to the task at hand. Concentrate. He got some recipes, bought fine ingredients and planned a six course extravaganza. He hoped to get lost in the details and forget about the stove.

Louise was suspicious, perplexed and ambivalent about meeting Alex. But the chance to see Mark overcome his phobia was irresistible. She had to show up.

Everything seemed to be going well, the hors d’oeuvres were a big hit, until the third course. Mark grabbed the handle of a pot without a potholder, pulled back quickly and then got his hand too close to the burner. He did it. He burned his hand. Again.

Even worse, his sleeve caught fire. He ran screaming from the room, then realized he needed water to douse the blaze. On the way to the bathroom, he got close to the drapes which then caught fire.

All three ran from the house and Louise called the fire department from her cell phone. Mark’s sleeve fire went out on its own, but his house burned for a long time.

Sitting out front in the cold, the three independently had the same thought: “It’s time to make a major change in my life.”

Three years later, Mark was a renowned chef. Louise and Alex were married. And Louise had a little bit going on on the side.