For years I had made his choices easier, softened them, given him excuses, arranged things so that he never quite had to face what he was doing.

If I begged him to stay now, if I made a scene, if I gave him a fight to lose or a villain to blame, I would be handing him one more excuse, one more story in which his leaving was really about my hysteria rather than his own decision.

So I did the hardest thing, which was to lay the choice down bare in front of him and then step back and let it be entirely his, with no interference and no cover.

Whatever he chose, I wanted it to be undeniably, unmistakably his.