His father, he said, was excellent at building things but had spent years learning that Helen didn’t always want another shelf or a repaired hinge.

Sometimes she wanted him to sit down and hear her.

“That’s probably where I got the instinct to fix everything,” Marcus confessed.

I looked at him.

“You didn’t fix the wedding for me.

You gave me a choice.”

“It felt like such a small thing.”

“It wasn’t.