The discovery that heartbreak is indeed heartbreaking consoles us about our humanity.
Kevin was a shell game in which all three cups were empty.
In the big picture I write for an audience of people I've never met. By the final draft I'm looking for anything in the prose that's prospectively boring to strangers.
...hoarders of guilty secrets are inevitably consumed with appearances.
For the living, death is thievery.
Worse, the deadly accuracy of filial faultfinding is facilitated by access, by trust, by willing disclosure, and so constitutes a double betrayal.