You seem clear-headed, except for one thing -- the apportion of blame/responsibility.

Him - 1, You - 0.

You are NOT responsible for his ending up in jail. These are his actions. He is responsible for the results. If he ends up in jail, too damned bad. All you did was make the oh-so-necessary phone call. Take it to the (inevitable) extreme: If/when he kills you, or your family, and is caught and convicted, is that your responsibility? Substitute the word "fault" for "responsibility" and see if your reasoning holds up.

Exactly.

His childhood or failures or neuroses (pick an excuse, any excuse) are not your problem. Go fast and far. If you stay with this asshole, then THAT is YOUR problem, and your fault, and your responsibility.

But you know what to do. You knew before you wrote to our beloved Cary. You just need the validation this guy has cut out from under you. Imagine yourself watching one of those Lifetime movies -- you're sitting on the sofa shouting, "Get out of there, girl! Are you crazy? You don't deserve this!" You're right. Now do what you have to do.

I can't help thinking of stories of starving concentration camp prisoners who shared pieces of bread with others to keep them alive another day, or families who lived on half-rations through the war so they could feed people they were hiding from the Nazis. Perhaps that neighbor stopped by because he was hungry, or lonely. Maybe he just wanted to share a few minutes with a happy family.

My second comment is this: I am amazed that so many Salon readers fail to appreciate Garrison Keillor. Does he render his points too gently to be understood these days? I search the site daily for his intimate tales, because in them I always find truths, sometimes large, often small, hidden artfully in the turn of a phrase, making me smile as they hit home. For me, his essays are always more than the sum of their parts.

Letting the LW read his email may be her husband's cowardly way of forcing her hand. He's "allowing" her to see what's going on, and this way, he can't say she didn't know. This way, if she leaves him, it's her decision. It sounds to me as if he has already left her, emotionally. But now he probably thinks, when he looks at his weasely self in the mirror, that he's being honest with her. After all, he's not hiding anything. The putz.

Since the day a dear friend, now long-dead of AIDS, handed me his copy of "Dancer From the Dance," I have been an ardent fan of Andrew Holleran. I have reread the book many times, and also his subsequent books -- all of them -- delighting in his details, his dialogue, and his ability to weave white-hot eroticism through his pages without explicit action (not that there's anything wrong with that...). Only Nabokov achieves that feat as well as Mr. Holleran (in Ada and Lolita, especially). The tragicomic Sutherland and Mr. Friel are among my favorite characters from my long and happy reading life. Ground Zero and The Beauty of Men broke my heart.

As a straight woman, I suppose I am in the minority of my demographic group in my love for the work of this man. Such a pity, since his characters and his passion speak to the pain and longing of all humans.

I didn't even wait to finish reading the article before clicking over to Amazon and buying "Grief." Were I to meet him, I would not be able to speak; I would simply kiss his hand.

It would be nice if you got the cabinet back, although I'm not holding my breath. But the truth of the matter is that it is just a thing. Now, the family photos -- that's something else entirely, but at least your memory is intact.

For the past year I've been collecting interviews for an oral history -- stories from people who were children during World War II. It is thanks to them that my perspective on "things" has changed. So many people have told me about fleeing their homes on a moment's notice, leaving everything -- and in some cases, everyone -- behind. One woman said to me, "Money is round. It goes, it comes back." Another described having to relinquish to the Nazis her brand-new fur coat. From that day, she said, she decided that she would enjoy everything she had every day -- because she could lose it all tomorrow.

Many people lost many things, but it's not for the clothes and the jewelry and the real estate they mourn. Those are just things.

I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard. My own lampreys are 19 and 15, but I can still remember the terror of looming failures. I promise, you're just oozing hormones right now. Not that your fears aren't valid -- some of them are, but mostly the ones on page 2. Babies are easy, nursing is a breeze. Sleep, though -- by the time you've caught up on sleep, the kid will have a learner's permit.

Meanwhile, he or she won't remember the gazillion walks (in the night or to the park) or the endless repetitions of Goodnight, Moon, or any of that lovely stuff over which you (and I, and the rest of us) will someday weep at the assisted living facility where they've stashed us, hoping to have the time to visit.

But all of that front-end loaded love will be in their emotional infrastructure somewhere, and if you (and I, and the rest of us) are lucky, you'll see for yourself that the frets and fears and insecurity made you a good parent, because the lamprey has survived till adulthood and produced your grandlampreys, who will think you are as wonderful as their parents thought you were when they were little. And they'll be right.

Have a wonderful birth!