Perhaps he would have held the line even then; he was a stubborn man, and a frightened one, and he had already decided to carry it alone.

But I will never entirely know, and that not-knowing is one of the small quiet weights I carry now.

It is not guilt, exactly.

It is closer to a lesson, learned too late to use on the person it was meant for: that when someone you love is shaking in the dark, the answer is almost never to let them be.

The answer is to stay.