I took the forty-eight hours. I did not answer my father's calls for two full days. I did not answer Tanya's text, which arrived six hours after the call, saying "Sweetie, please don't be upset. I just want to be part of this for your dad." I sat with it. I called my mother's brother, my uncle Denis. Denis is my mother's only sibling. He is, to my knowledge, the one person on this earth who has loved me the way my mother loved me, which is to say — unconditionally, with no interest in managing my image,

with no agenda beyond wanting me to be happy. Denis is a veterinarian in New Hampshire. He had been my emergency contact for four years of college. He had taken me to my first Thanksgiving after my mother died, and he had, that Thanksgiving, held me at the kitchen counter for twenty minutes while I cried about the fact that I was not at home. I called Denis. I told him everything — the piano, the dress, the ultimatum. Denis was quiet for a long time. Then he said, "Kid. I'll walk you. If you want me to. I will walk you down any aisle on any day of your life. And I will tell your dad, at the rehearsal dinner I am not invited to, exactly why he should be there." I cried on that phone call. I had not cried in weeks.