When she did speak, Miles’s wife was careful. She was attentive to what she said, how she said it, and why, making her pauses more loaded, her half of the conversation more compelling, and her criticisms more devastating. Miles was messy by comparison, but he preferred to think of it as a strategy. It wasn’t that he was incapable of getting it together; he was messy because carefulness in communication made him uneasy. It was too tactical, too close to dishonesty. It was a technique for people who were unwilling to confront the consequences of their true feelings. When Miles wasn’t ready to reveal something, he’d made a practice of forcing himself anyway, at least when he could remember to, and he almost always felt better after doing so. Whatever the aftermath, he’d done what he could. The weight was lifted. A burden shared is a burden halved. Having it out beat holding it in.