It had become, without my noticing, its own kind of cage.

This is a subtle thing, and I have had to think about it carefully to understand it, because the same act — keeping my marriage secret — was, at different times, two completely opposite things.

For the first year or two, hiding Julian from my family was genuinely protective.

It kept the one good thing in my life safe from a place that damaged good things, and that was wise, and I do not regret it.

But somewhere along the way, without any clear line being crossed, the protection curdled into something else.