I would never say that Luca’s betrayal was good, or that I am glad my son had to hear it, or that the suffering was somehow worth it in a cosmic ledger that balances out.

The suffering was real, and it was not deserved, and a better man would have spared us all of it.

What I mean is something narrower and truer: that the removal of a bad thing is not the same as the loss of a good thing, though at first it feels identical.

When Luca left, it felt like a loss, because he had occupied the space of a husband and a father and his absence left a hole shaped exactly like those roles.

But he had not actually been filling those roles.