Chapter 13 — The Secret Under the Secret

Mark lowered himself into an armchair, and as he did, the composure he had walked in with — the managing, narrative-controlling composure Martha had watched him wear through a hundred difficult conversations — simply drained out of him, until what was left in the chair was smaller than the man who had sat down in it.

For the first time since he had entered the room, he stopped trying to shape how any of this would look.

He just started, at last, to tell the truth, and the truth turned out to have a second floor beneath the one Martha thought she was standing on.