He saw a bill.

He saw another expense he could not pay.

He saw one more crushing weight landing on a man who was already going under, and something in him, some overloaded and failing part of him, simply snapped.

And because he was too ashamed — too paralyzed with shame to stand up in that room and say I lost my job, I’ve been lying to all of you for months, I’ve buried us in debt, and I’m terrified — he reached, in his panic, for the only exit his drowning mind could find.

He used his daughter’s medical condition as a screen.