“Fuck yeah,” he answered. “The mistakes we make in life don’t define us, Amy. The way we handle ’em after makin’ ’em do. You made a mistake. Now you’re handling it and doing it the right way and that’s who you are. A mother who wants to heal her family and make them safe and healthy. So really, you got that strength in you, that’s all you ever were. Your ex tripped you up and you weren’t expecting it and you didn’t handle it right. But that’s over, so you gotta find the strength to keep handling it right now.”

“I…it’s hard to get over the making the mistake part.”

He lifted his head away, but not far. “Yeah, what you lost makin’ yours, I get that. But the root of this issue is not your burden to bear. I understand how it went down, but a cheater manipulating a bad situation he created, gettin’ the upper hand with his kids and continuing to beat down the wife he fucked over.” He shook his head. “No. You get that now, I’m seeing. But I’ll repeat…no. You’re right. You know it and I don’t have to say it, but your kids shouldn’t have seen that. But what I saw is this guy who shared your bed for sixteen years then tore your family apart and sent you reeling up in your face at your front door without you buyin’ that shit at all, just movin’ to be close to your kids. He’s a motherfucking asshole, Amy, and in all this, whatever you served up to him, he bought that and deserved every second of the shit you shoved down his throat. So that…you let go. Because that’s not on you.”

“I shouldn’t have licked my wounds, kept them fresh, torn at them more, Mickey,” I told him. “I should have taken my licks, sorted myself out and moved on.”

“Rhiannon was passed out every night before I could make love to her and that shit went on for months,” he declared.

I stared.

But he wasn’t done.

“Seein’ my wife like that, sloppy drunk before she was unconscious, half the time she got to that point, she still had a wineglass in her hand. So many stains on the carpet, I had to put new in when she moved out because the carpet was a mess but more, to erase those memories for my kids and for me. So I didn’t have it in me to go for it when she was sober. A man needs to fuck, Amy, and I was dry for eight months when I had a wife in my bed and I still never even considered steppin’ out on her. She was my wife. Good or bad, you do not do that shit. It’s bad, you end it and then you find ass to tap.”