Watching him receive condolences over Tessa’s casket, I finally understood the thing that had always bothered me, because it was on full display and stripped of its usual cover.

Damon did not have feelings.

He had performances of feelings — flawless ones, studied ones, delivered on cue and pitched perfectly to his audience — but there was no weather behind them, no true thing moving underneath, and standing three feet away at the worst moment of both our lives, I could finally see the seam where the performance met the emptiness.

Everyone else in that room saw a husband holding himself together with admirable strength.