And knowing it now, I did not love a stranger.

I loved the same man, more completely, understanding at last the depth beneath the surface I had cherished.

There is a particular intimacy, I have discovered, in learning the hardest truth about someone and finding that it makes you love them more, not less.

It is a deeper marriage now, on the far side of the secret, than it was before, because there is nothing left hidden in it, no sealed room, no burden carried alone.

Whatever the years of silence cost us, they have been repaid, with interest, by the closeness that came after them.