But there was a larger part that understood he needed to say it and to be heard saying it, without me rushing in to make it smaller.

Some confessions have to be allowed to stand at their full size before any comfort can mean anything.

If I had softened it too soon, told him it was all right, that he could not have done anything, I would have been robbing him of the thing he most needed, which was to finally speak the truth of his own failure out loud and have it received without flinching.

So I let him say it, and I let it sit in the room at its full weight, and only later, much later, did the comforting come.