[...] We ’d both learned—not from each other; we ’ve both been around the block—that the big moments you plan never work, so we decided against the French restaurant two towns over with the forty-dollar prix fixe dinner, and went to the diner on 28. We took a booth, ordered pancakes and sausage and sat waiting for the modest magic by which the everyday becomes precious. Steven flipped page after page of jukebox selections, fingering the little metal tabs at the bottom. The country songs in green. Then he flipped back through in the other direction.

“Nothing,” he said. “Zip. Unless you want to hear fucking Randy Travis.”

By this I understood that I was not to want to hear Randy Travis.