I had married a man who belonged, in part, to other people, to strangers who needed him more than I did in the moment of their crisis, and I had made my peace with that a long time ago.

But this was more than that.

This was a door closing somewhere in him, and I could feel the draft of it without being able to find where it was.

That is the cruelest part of a secret kept out of love: it does not feel like love from the other side.

It feels like withdrawal, like coldness, like being slowly shut out, and the person keeping it cannot see that, because from the inside it feels like protection.

Marcus believed, every day of those months, that his silence was a gift he was giving me.