I want to be clear that I did not send that message to be cruel, though I understand it reads that way, and I understand that he experienced it as a blow struck while he was already down.

But it was not a blow.

It was a mercy, of a kind — the mercy of the truth, delivered plainly, so that he would not spend a single one of the next three days flying home to a marriage that no longer existed, rehearsing apologies for a wife who was already gone.

I had spent fourteen years managing his feelings, softening every truth before I handed it to him, cushioning him from every consequence.

I was finished doing that.

The kindest thing I had left to give him was the unsoftened fact.