Why marry, after all? The boy stirring in the back seat was their marriage, even though, from the start, it was Ernest who had summoned him up, first as a dream and then as a plan and then as a to-do list. It was Ernest who’d wanted a child, and then specified a biological one, who’d found the donor egg, and the surrogate, and then offered what he thought was a compromise: they could mix their sperm together. “Oh God, how revolting,” said Bruno, and Ernest had pointed out gently that it wouldn’t be exactly the first time. “But not in a laboratory,” said Bruno, who ordinarily was the one with a sense of humor. And so the boy was Ernest’s child by blood, and Bruno’s by legal adoption. Ernest was Daddy and Bruno was Pop; Ernest believed in vows, Bruno in facts and deeds. The important fact was four years old. The fact was named Cody. The fact had never-cut red hair that hung to his shoulders and was so fair-skinned as to be combustible. Every day he was slathered in sunscreen; the first freckle would be a tragedy Ernest might never recover from. God knew when they’d manage a first haircut. When Cody and Bruno were out in the world together, they were generally taken for grandfather and granddaughter, and this thorough wrongness incensed Ernest, though Bruno had learned over the years not to take the mistakes of others too seriously, not when his own mistakes required so much analysis. He couldn’t explain to Ernest the real trouble with a wedding: Ernest’s shocking taste, which he, Bruno, would have to go along with, and smile, and declare himself happy. “I like peach,” Ernest would say, displaying a napkin. Or, “My family loves disco music.” Or, “We could have beef Wellington.”

Once upon a time, Bruno had had opinions about everything—the politics of Eastern Europe, baby clothes, how airline stewardesses should comport themselves, interior decoration. Then: Ernest. Ernest, from a happy Cuban-American family, had grown up going to Disney World for vacations and watching sports on television and buying clothing in actual shopping malls. Ernest had quite the worst taste Bruno had ever encountered. Up-to-date American taste. For instance: Bruno had never imagined that a person he loved could admire, never mind long for, the abomination that was an open-plan house. Proper houses had doors, had walls, had secrets. But as they watched real estate programs for tips on buying—neither had ever owned property, Ernest because he was young and Bruno because he was lazy—he was horrified to hear Ernest say, “Now see, that’s perfect. You can see everything from the kitchen.”

“Do you know who else likes to see everything from the kitchen?” Bruno asked. “The Devil. Hell is entirely without doors.”

“Heaven doesn’t need doors,” said Ernest.