The rest of us stared at DuShawn, who said, “Because he’s sad.”

I wanted to either hug the flat screen or throw it out the window, as if that would block Edgar from proceeding.

“Hello,” Edgar began, at first in a whisper, then speaking up. “Hello. I apologise for bursting in like this, and I’d like to thank the media for the airtime. I . . . I . . . I’m sorry, let me just collect myself.”

He stood up, with the camera jerking to follow him. After a second of indecision, he shook himself, waggling his head and rotating back and forth as if twirling an invisible hula hoop. The way I’d taught him to, all those months ago, at the United Nations.

“What’s he doing?” asked Adam.

“Is he having a stroke?” wondered Louise.

“He’s—loosening up,” I explained.

Edgar sat back down, his hair now a bit less dutiful, his face flushed.

“There. All right. For the first time in my life, I’m not sure what I’m going to say next. And I’m a prince, so I’m supposed to know.”

“He looks better now,” said Adam.

“Is he drunk?” asked DuShawn.

We all stared at DuShawn, who said, “Because sometimes it helps.”

Edgar barely drank, and he wasn’t drunk now. But he was ignoring any prepared remarks on the teleprompter.

“After my parents passed away,” Edgar was saying, “and I’d begun the earliest twinges of acceptance, I only desired two things: to be safe, and for life to make sense. And that was fine, that was enough, more than enough, for many years, until—I met someone. The most unlikely, infuriating person.”

Uh-oh.

“And because I’m me, I pressured him. I badgered him. And I made him surmise that in order to please me, and this country, he’d be required to change in every respect. To alter so much about himself that I adored. I’m an idiot. As probably everyone but me already knows, if you love someone, you don’t try to change them. You honor them. You listen to them. You believe them. You hate them and you love them and if you’re very lucky, they change you. And beyond all else, you trust them. I have what are called trust issues, as the result of past betrayals. But that was no reason for me to lash out at a man who’d only been honest. A man who’d never given me the slightest cause to doubt him. A man who’d had no difficulty admitting he was from New Jersey and introducing me to his altogether splendid family, especially his marvelous sister, Abby. When I accused this man of lying to me, I should’ve reconsidered immediately, because Abby’s brother would never lie.”

My phone was blowing up with texts and emails and a photo of Abby screaming with happiness, taken exactly one second ago.