Letter after letter, Daniel laid bare his soul. He recounted nights spent in self-loathing, the shame of his addiction gnawing at him, and his deep-seated fear of disappointing her. He expressed regret over the life she had been forced to lead, the dreams she had shelved because he was too proud to seek help. “I never stopped loving you,” he wrote. “Every day, I wished I were a better man.”

Rachel’s tears dripped onto the letters as she read about his solitary dinners not as clandestine meetings, but moments spent in solitude, wrestling internally with demons she never knew existed. He had been dining alone to avoid the temptation of casinos and to escape the suffocating guilt he felt. Each meal was a small victory in a war he waged silently.