My Mother-in-Law Left a Blue Notebook in Our Hallway Closet—After My Son Was Born, I Finally Learned What She Had Been Recording Inside It

Perfect.

Objects can change meaning when we stop forcing them to preserve pain.

The blue notebook could not.

So we shredded it.

The lock could.

So Thomas drilled holes through it.

Life is strange that way.

People ask what I would do differently.