Because, on some level, he allowed himself to believe it — to internalize it, swallowing it whole and letting it slosh around in his consciousness, a foul, undigested mass.  He read that letter, as he had, on repeated occasions since seeing it arrive in his inbox, and found that at least part of his rage emanated from some faint, strident, slightly-German-accented voice at a podium in his superego, a voice that echoed decades of un-subtle assaults on his sense of well-being and that wouldn’t…fucking…stop.

“Needless to say, we are VERY disappointed in you.”

It was her trump card; her teflon-coated bullet, her guaranteed means of knocking him off balance; sucking the metaphorical wind that blew only rarely in tentative, fearful gusts in his figurative sails.  Because she knew; had sensed, long before she came to know him at the depth of which she was capable, how desperate was his need for, if not praise, than at least the recognition that he was not offending the space he occupied, that he was not selfishly hoarding the air he breathed.  She sensed weakness — however unmistakable his own had always been — and pounced on it, a predator ripping its claws into the softest part of its prey; a cancerous cell latching onto a healther one, growing, encroaching on those around it, not enough to kill; enough to make its presence painfully known: I will never leave.  I will occupy space that I have not asked for, as long as I please, and how dare you resent my taking the time to grow steadily and make an effort to be in your life.”

“VERY disappointed in you.”

So had begun the first step toward his emancipation.