He had turned every falling page over with his good hand and smiled through it, so that the people he loved would not have to watch him lose himself.

I stood at the edge of the garden and I began, quietly, to cry.

Not loudly, not yet, not in a way that would carry across the grass and reach him.

I cried the way you cry when a truth arrives that is too large to be met with anything smaller than tears, standing very still with my hand pressed over my mouth, watching my husband perform, for a laughing bald little boy, the same small brave deception he had been performing for me and for our daughter for six months without our ever seeing it.

Every falling page turned smoothly by the good hand.