It hits me like brand-new news that I could just leave. I could even leave right now. Just drive away and never come back. John wouldn’t care; if anything, he’d be delighted. I’d be a failure, I think. But suddenly the word looks so small. Okay, let’s say you run screaming and become a failure. Do you care? What if you just … let yourself fail? I almost laugh out loud at the notion of deciding to let myself fail. But it’s inside me now, even if it sounds absurd, as physically impossible as willing myself to drown.

But everyone would know I failed, I think then. If I leave this job before I’ve nailed it.

So? Let’s say two hundred people write you off as a failure, but meanwhile you’re sober and not crying all the time. Would that be a fair trade-off?

I don’t know. The word “failure” is starting to look big again and I have to back away from it. But I store away the idea that failure could be exactly what I need. I add it to a mental list I started compiling the day I discovered the strawberry stand and realized I was interested in myself: You like wooden boats and flaky salt and having dahlias at your desk. Sometimes you tell yourself mean things when you run. You feel calmer when you go outside at lunchtime. If you don’t sleep well one night, you usually do the next. Having a whole mystery series to read makes you feel safe. You always thought you weren’t tough, but you are. You really do believe failure goes on some sort of permanent record. You can get weirdly absorbed in cleaning out a drawer. You try so hard to be good at things you don’t actually want to do. You never ask yourself if maybe you should just stop doing them.