Now, Kate Oliver is not inherently ordinary. But she aspires to be. At five-nine she’s an inch taller than I am. Her straight blond hair, her kind green eyes, and her free-of-makeup face all combine to make this first impression: She quite likely could have been the love child of Joni Mitchell and Mick Jagger. Her hippie mother chased bliss and all its chemical and sexual equivalents for years. Her mother’s addiction to drugs and drama seemed to inspire Kate to experience its opposite. Truth be told, Kate craves the ordinary. She longs for it. Often couples marry their own kind. In Kate’s case, she married down, which was why from the first moment she appeared barefoot in her white lace wedding dress, that rip-out-my-heart moment when I saw her come around the stone column at the Chapel of Harmony in Big Sur, when I blurted out, “Oh my God,” those first tears began to roll. I proceeded to cry nonstop, as if I’d sprung a leak. And it was why I kept weeping through the readings (Rilke; Rumi; First Corinthians, chapter 13), through Kate’s mom, Ariel, singing/butchering “The Wedding Song.” I sobbed, my back shook, a stream of clear snot leaked from my nose, and everyone except my father laughed as it became obvious I couldn’t stop. Three of Kate’s former lovers—Dr. Max Brown (Kate’s geology instructor at UC Berkeley); Jeff Slade (yes, the Jeff Slade); and Solveig Knudsen (Kate’s freshman roommate/lesbian activist/body double)—watched, stunned, wondering why it hadn’t gone their way. It’s clear to me now I couldn’t stop because I couldn’t believe my own sweet luck that she was marrying me.

Nine years and two boys later, I still had the ring. And what did Kate and I have? A great, ordinary love we both fought for and guarded. Somehow in these bumpy, broken early years of the twenty-first century, we had navigated our way to something good and simple.

That was what I felt as I sat in my chair. What a quiet confidence I possessed that afternoon—to own a feeling so great that for any price, it was not for sale. I closed my eyes, leaned back, wah-lah . . .

It was too perfect, I would later decide, the light rap of knuckles on the wavy glass of my office door. I ignored the knocking, but it persisted. I knew the hand. I could picture the chubby knuckles. I glanced toward the door and noted the odd-shaped silhouette pressed against the glass. Yes. Of course. It was her. Knocking. And I had no other choice but to open the door.

There she stood, all four feet nine inches of her, newly sixteen but still the same height as when she was ten, a forever pug-nosed little chunk of a girl, barrel-chested with mouse-brown hair and a cluster of pebble-sized pimples dotting her fleshy forehead.

“Mr. Welch,” she hissed. “Am I disturbing you?”

“Always. What do you want?”

“I want to confirm that we’re confirmed.”