It’s the worst thing that ever happened to him. It’s the worst thing that could ever happen to him, besides possibly being hit by a bus, which is unlikely but not impossible, and therefore not magical. His wife left him for an ex, an old flame. As though it had suddenly flamed up in her—I am not with the right man, I am not where I am supposed to be, I am not in my right life no matter how comfortable— and her flame sparked the flame of her old flame, and they burned together. In the old days they would have been considered the worst sort of sinners.