His Measured Distance

Priya Raghavan came home to Bellflower for one reason and one summer: her mother is dying, and somebody has to run the produce stand. Sam Okafor is a contractor who came back for good and has been quietly in love with her since high school. They spend the spring in adjacent stalls at the Saturday market, then in an argument about beam loads, then in the same bed — on the understanding that Priya leaves in August. In May, two things happen at once: Priya's mother dies, and Priya finds out she's pregnant. Sam proposes within a week. Priya says no. What follows is a summer of two engineers building a shared life the only way they know how: load path by load path, in pencil and in code, until it turns out to be the most romantic thing either of them has ever done. A precise, tender small-town romance about the plans you draw and the ones you don't.