This is hard work. I want to be clear that I know it is hard work. The kind of self-examination that requires you to look at something you did with full knowledge and account for why you did it, when the answer implicates something in how you see yourself, is genuinely difficult. Daniel is doing it. That matters.
## When Beth Got It Exactly Right
I want to include one thing Beth said, because she said it better than I could have.
We were at our third lunch, in August, and we were talking about the situation in the way that had become natural between us: not avoiding it, not dwelling on it, referencing it when it was relevant and moving on when it wasn’t. She had been telling me about a conversation she had with their mother Marian in which Marian had said something about how things had settled down, which is Marian’s way of describing the resolution of difficult things.
Beth said: “I asked Mom what she thought had gone wrong. Like, what did she think had caused it.”
“What did she say?”
“She said Daniel had given her incomplete information and she had accepted it without question. Which I think is true and also slightly generous to Daniel.”
“What would you say caused it?”
Beth thought for a moment. “I would say Daniel had a picture of his life that didn’t quite have you in it the way you actually are. And maintaining the picture was more important to him than accuracy. And everyone around him let it be more important, including you.” She looked at me. “Is that too much?”