And I had spent six years being told I was a burden, and here, at last, was proof: I was one, I was breaking a good man’s life simply by needing his help.

So I did the most loving and most foolish thing I have ever done.

Before dawn, I wrote him a note. I packed only the clothes we had arrived in — nothing of his, nothing new, I wouldn’t take anything — and I took my three sleeping daughters and I went to a women’s shelter across the county run by a nun named Sister Mary, who asked no questions and made up cots for us in the dark.

I love you enough not to let my troubles destroy your life’s work, I wrote in the note I left on the library table.

I believed, when I wrote it, that I was setting him free. I believed leaving was the gift.

It was the worst mistake I ever made.