I did not miss out on anything.

I was there for the only thing I would ever have wanted to be there for.

I think about that woman sometimes — the one from the early years, the kind and patient one I let go.

It is the one genuine regret in the whole account, if I’m honest, the only place the story has a real cost in it, and even there I am not sure I would choose differently.

She would have been good to me.

She might even have been good to the girls.