“Okay,” she began, to Edgar, “first of all, you’re adorable and you look just like in your pictures only a little bit taller, so yay! Second of all, we need to talk about your grandmother’s dogs and a thing I read online that said you were dating Matt Bomer, which made me very worried, because I thought he was happily married to another guy.”

“As I believe he is,” said Edgar. “And I’ve never met either of them.”

“Good,” said Abby. “Because here’s my bottom line. Carter, come over here.”

“I am over here.”

“Edgar, you see this unbelievably cute guy, even if he doesn’t think so? He’s just been through a total nightmare trainwreck with a person we will not even name, because I’m a surgeon, so he’s lucky I haven’t cut out his despicable nonexistent heart and made it look like an accident. But he treated Carter like garbage, I won’t go into details, but one word: cheating bastard.”

“That’s two words,” I corrected.

“Shut up. So, Edgar, I’m going to tell you one thing: if you hurt my brother in any way, even by accident, even for a second, I will hunt you down, and all I can say is, your brother will become king and your body will never be found, not even as diced onions made of royalty.”

I’ve always loved that, for a doctor with infinite benevolence for children, Abby has the most luridly violent inner life of anyone I’ve ever met.

“So Edgar, Your Highness, whatever, we’ll figure out what I’m going to call you later, but right now I need to hear it, from your royal lips: are you going to be good to my brother?”

“I would very much like to try . . .” Edgar began.

“Trying isn’t doing. Are you going to be good to him, and treat him with the caring and sweetness and respect that he deserves?”

Edgar glanced at me without moving his head. I made a helpless I-have-no-power-here gesture.

“Yes,” Edgar said, forcefully.

“Yes?” Abby asked, not giving an inch.

“Yes, ma’am!”

“That’s what I wanted to hear!” Abby exclaimed, going for another bear hug as I offered Edgar a good-job thumbs-up.

“Honey?” said Dane, Abby’s new husband, strapping and square-jawed in his tux with a magenta-and-blue rose on his lapel and a magenta-and-blue yarmulke embroidered with “Abby & Dane” and the date.

“Dane,” said Abby, “this is Prince Edgar of England, who’s just sworn on his life not to treat Carter the way you-know-who did. And Edgar, this is my husband—I love saying that! This is my husband, Dane Lefkowitz, who’s the most incredible man I’ve ever met, and I love him to pieces.”

When Abby said this I knew that, given Abby’s recent remarks, Edgar and I had both just visualised Dane in cornflake-size fragments.