Peter had made me promise we’d go to my uncle’s later that day and announce our engagement. Peter’s family lived in Michigan, so my uncle was the one blood relative we—we, we, we, now it was always we—had in New York. “I should go by myself,” I said. Peter froze holding a spritzing bottle in his hand. “To Uncle Luke’s?” I nodded. His face twitched, all his arguments stuck in a grimace. Pipes gargled, something creaked, and a dog barked. He inhaled and with the same breath whispered, “Okay.”
