I think about that often now, in this bright kitchen, with the coast out the window and the yellow curtains moving in the sea air.

My son handed me the truth without even knowing it was truth — he simply saw a lady he recognized and said so, because at five you have not yet learned to talk yourself out of what your own eyes tell you, to soften it, to swallow it for the sake of keeping the peace.

That is a thing we teach children as they grow, and mostly we are right to; the world runs on a certain amount of tactful blindness.

But there is a cost to it, and I had paid that cost for years without knowing — had trained myself, as a good wife, to explain away the small wrong notes, the odd expenses, the face-down phone, to keep the surface of my marriage smooth because looking underneath it was frightening.