“I’m not, swear to God. I was going to introduce you, because she’d be over the moon. But not if you’re wedding-phobic. Not if you’re a total dickless coward.”

“I’m not a dickless coward! I’m being realistic! I’m saving myself, and Edgar, from making an even bigger mistake! So we don’t keep going and, I don’t know, have an even more vicious lightsaber battle on The Today Show or mud-wrestle each other on pay per view!”

Abby stared at me; we’d reached an impasse. But I was right, because I felt clear-eyed and older and grim. I felt like an almost-thirty-year-old grown-up. I finished my pancakes, and even though Abby makes a lot more money than I do, I paid the check. And granted, an IHOP bill isn’t a second mortgage, but I made my point. When it came to my life and my future and pancakes, I was in charge. Abby drove us to our house. She’d warned everyone to back off until I was ready to begin the healing process, which meant that as my mom opened the front door she said, “At least your skin looked nice on TV,” and my dad commented, “You should be grateful you’re not Gaveston, the male lover of Edward II, who in 1312 had him excommunicated and run through with a sword.”

Miriam was waiting in the living room. “This is what happens when you hang out with those royals, because they like horses more than people. I thought that Edgar, that Little Mister Crown Prince, I thought he was different, but he’s a cold fish, which is a meal only people in Connecticut enjoy.”

I stayed in my childhood bedroom for a week, staring at the posters for The Light in the Piazza, Avenue Q and a community theater production of Anything Goes, in which I’d played a tap-dancing sailor. I slept fitfully and ate only brightly colored, packaged foods. The Palace had issued a brief statement asking for people to respect His Highness’s privacy at a difficult time, and Gerald and Maureen held a briefing on the steps of their estate, cuddling their twins as Gerald told the assembled media, “I love my brother and he’s been granted a fortunate reprieve,” as Maureen echoed, “I’ve no interest in defaming or disparaging anyone, but as to Mr. Ogden, I’ll only say this: the man can’t hold his trifle.”

I went back to work, deflecting Cassandra’s hugs, her condescendingly sympathetic remarks (“I hope you’ve learned something”) and her requests for me to “get in touch with your grief-core and tell me everything.” I’d raise a hand and murmur, “Too soon,” so she could make compassionate clucking noises.