Michael did want them to marry one day to establish that their commitment was real, fearless and holy.

“Holy?” she asked with a laugh. “When did you get religion?”

“I just mean I’m not afraid to make a lifetime pledge. I want to do that. Someday.”

By the time little Eric was four years old, Charley had graduated from Berkeley and been in the workforce for some time, moving up very quickly in the world of television. She used the name Berkey, dropping Hempstead. She said it was better for television, but truthfully, she was still angry with her parents and grandparents and secretly hoped it would piss them off. Michael was a full professor at Stanford. Charley went from production in the San Francisco affiliate, to weather reporter, then anchorwoman, and it wasn’t long before she took over a local morning talk show. The ratings soared and she was picked up by other markets. She bought herself a town house in the city—a very nice town house with a view—which she had used every nickel plus loans to buy. It was not only a great investment but convenient. Even though there were two houses between them, they managed to spend most nights together. If they stayed with her in the city, Eric and Michael would head back to Michael’s Palo Alto house and that was where Eric went to school. Charley’s house wasn’t entirely an indulgence. She reported to the studio at four a.m. and as long as she lived in the city the station sent a car for her.

They’d been together for twenty-two years. They’d had arguments here and there, power struggles over how to raise Eric or how the money should be spent, and conflicting political ideas. They managed well for two people with demanding careers and a child they were devoted to; they made such an exceptional team they were the envy of many long-married friends. The subject of their own marriage hardly ever came up.

Then Charley’s world turned on its ear. She had not been prepared for the network to pull her show without warning. She had no backup plan. At almost the same moment Megan was undergoing radical chemo to precede a bone marrow transplant. The doctors gave her a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the cancer, which had spread, and the chemo had already nearly wiped her out. Charley was not prepared to lose another sister.

And she was not prepared to have no career. Her career was her identity; she was proud of it. She had been successful.

“Sounds like a good time for us to get married,” Michael said.

She was stunned. “What, in your twisted mind, makes you think this is a good time for me?” she asked, gobsmacked. “And what, pray, do you think marriage will do to make it good?”