The card read: “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” It was his birthday and she had rushed into the house, face glowing, and handed him a card. They hugged and kissed and were happy. His niece planned an engagement party and they prepared guest lists. They had never been happier. It was going to work out forever.

Evan asked his 22-year-old niece, the repository of the world’s knowledge: “Niece, I don’t have money for gold or silver or diamonds or sapphires, what should I get her?”

“Write her a song,” she said. So he did. He called it Baby’s Arms and it rocked and he was going to play it in front of a house full of people, something he had never done before. His first real performance.

I feared the future, I mourned the past

But it blew away in a flash

I got time by the tail

In my baby’s arms

Here the weather never change

And all my worries are out of range

The light never fades

In my baby’s arms.

He played the song at the party, sweat soaking his shirt, heart pounding, thinking: “You’re making an idiot of yourself,” and everyone cheered and Annie hugged him. Their life had turned a corner and he could see they would make it. They were in love and forever was in sight.

“It’s so easy to see she adores you, the way she looked at you when you played that song,” Franklin said. Other women came up to him and said how lucky Annie was to have a man write her love songs. They were happy. The future looked as bright as a sunrise, their love would conquer all. For two days life was normal. Then she went nuts.

He was taking up space on the sofa again, reading by the light of the front window, when she started screaming.

“Marriage was never my idea, I just did it for you,” she said, working herself up the rage index. “I don’t agree with marriage. Feminists have been fighting for years about marriage. It’s sexist! You’re the one who wants to get married. I never wanted to get married.”

“I never asked you to marry me,” he said, stunned.

“But that’s what you want. I only did it ‘cause I know that’s what you want.”

“You’re doing it again,” he said. “Like everything else — the film script, the new book, the renovations, the relationship, the supposed wedding — you’re destroying it. You destroy everything. You can’t be happy. It’s impossible. You take every pleasure and run over it with a tank.”

The reaction was perhaps not what his therapist would have advised. Or maybe it was. Exactly what did non-accommodation mean?

He thought for a second he should take her in his arms. But he didn’t. You could maybe dampen the flaming anger, but the pilot light would always glow red hot. He climbed off the sofa and left, getting in the car and driving, just driving, until he pulled over on some side street.

“What the fuck am I going to do?” he said. But no one heard and no one answered.