My heart is crushed

I just can't help it. I'm going to share this with you, otherwise I'm gonna burst into tears. I promised myself that I'll never cry at ANY Oates novel again. But this one's really a crusher. Argh.

Exerpt from "You Must Remember This" by Joyce Carol Oates:

Mid-May Felix telephoned Enid for the first time in months. To tell her he was getting married.

He wanted her to be the first to know--before the woman herself knows, he said.

He wasn't going to tell her who the woman was and she wasn't going to ask.

They weren't on the phone long, perhaps ten minutes. There were pauses, stretches of strained silence, Enid tried to muffle her sobs, she didn't want him to hear her cry and he wasn't going to acknowledge he heard her cry or guessed it or wished for it. Why hadn't he died, she was thinking. Beaten in a tavern down by the docks, beaten savagely, his wallet taken and his clothes ripped half off him even one of his shoes thrown into a toilet....

Now he was asking how she was and Enid said the usual things and he said he'd heard from Lyle she was going away to college to study music in the fall. If she ever needed money--
No, Enid said carefully. I won't need money.
If you do, said Felix, just let me know.

Why hadn't he died.
Why hadn't they both died.
Why hadn't they.


To put things into context:
Enid is 18 years old. Felix, 30-something.
Felix is Enid's uncle (or half-uncle, since he and Enid's father are half-brothers).

Tragic.