You cannot; it was load-bearing, it was who he had become.

I learned that the hard way, early, when I tried once to just tell him to stop — to let me handle Josie, to go be a kid, to quit worrying.

I said it kindly and I meant it as a gift, and it landed on him as a threat, because I had not understood yet what I was asking.

To Ollie, being the one responsible for Josie was not a burden he wanted lifted.

It was his purpose, his identity, the single load-bearing wall of a self he’d built in a collapsing house.