I want to say something about that before I say the rest, because it is the truest thing about him.

He has never once, in four years, told me I was overreacting.

Not once.

Not in the worst week, not through mediation, not in any of the eleven hundred text messages we have exchanged about pickups and preschool and a rash.

He has never used the word still, as in are you still.

He has never told anybody in his family that I am difficult; I know that because his sister told me, unprompted, and she had no reason to lie.

What he did was catastrophic and what he has done since is about as good as a person can do, and those do not cancel and I have stopped waiting for them to.