If Delia Ephron had written about the previous decade of her life as a screenplay, she would have had to invent a new genre, perhaps calling it “romcomtrag,” with the emphasis as much on tragedy as on romance and comedy. Her first husband loses a long battle with pancreatic cancer, which leads her to write a poignant yet funny piece for The New York Times about her battle with Verizon over his old phone number, which leads a long-ago acquaintance now living in California (one she did not even remember despite several dates!) to contact her and commiserate, having recently lost his own wife.
Well, what follows may be the best connection that Verizon (inadvertently) ever made, since Peter (a psychiatrist, no less!) and Delia fall in love. What also follows is more tragedy, since Delia is diagnosed with leukemia, a disease that runs in her family and that claimed her sister, the famous and beloved Nora, in 2012. (In fact, Delia was a perfect match for donating stem cells to her sister during her illness, but that did not work out.)
