Thinking about our life together, the woman resumed, what a misery our marriage had turned out to be, how little happiness we had to look back on, I had to confess that I understood. Perhaps, had their roles been reversed, she would have felt the same, she said. Perhaps many people trapped in bad marriages felt relief when the other one died. Perhaps they couldn’t help feeling that way—and perhaps they couldn’t hide their feelings. And terrible though all that was, the woman said she asked herself: Was it a crime? When you think about it, she said, what was I saying? That my husband should have been a better actor? A better liar?

She needed him, the woman went on. She was sick, she was flat on her back so many days, helpless. She didn’t want to be a burden to her children, she said, each of whom had jobs and families and plenty of struggles of their own. She needed someone to take care of her, and her husband did take care of her, though God knows it wasn’t always easy, and he did it without complaining.

And, as I say, the woman told the group, he is always in a good mood now. Always cheerful, only too happy to be doing this and that for me, sometimes humming under his breath, or whistling. And all along he has no idea what I’m going through, and that I know the truth. He has no idea, repeated the woman, that I know. I know.