For years I had held the truth of my marriage privately.

I knew, in the isolation of my own head, that Roman was lying, that money was disappearing, that something was deeply wrong.

But a truth that only you know is a heavy and lonely thing, and it is a fragile thing too, because it exists nowhere but inside you, and the people around you are all agreeing, out loud, that it is false.

A private truth, contradicted by everyone, starts to feel like a delusion even to the person holding it.