“You’re always standing alone.” That sentence went into me deeper than anything Joe had said all night.

Deeper than the affair.

Deeper than the child. You’re always standing alone. My ten-year-old had been watching me stand alone his whole life, and had decided, tonight, that he could not bear to watch it one more time, and had picked up a microphone to stand beside me.

And I understood, in that instant, that I had failed at the one thing I most needed to do, which was to never let my son believe that saving me was his job.

Because that is what I heard, underneath his cracking voice.