One evening he told me he had decided to proceed with the separation.

“She’s trying,” he said.

“I can see that.

But when I picture the next ten or twenty years, I keep thinking about how easily she decided Grandma wasn’t worth paying.

I don’t trust my own judgment yet.”

“That’s a big thing to admit.”

“I don’t want to punish her forever for one mistake,” he said.

“I also don’t want to marry the idea of who she might become.”