I watched Gregory listen.

He had spent twenty years treating silence as protection.

Now he was learning the difference between secrecy imposed on someone and privacy chosen by that person.

The next morning he shredded a stack of old notes that contained unnecessary identifying details from the search, after making sure the legally relevant records were secure with Lena.

“I used to think keeping everything was safer,” he said.

“Now I think keeping only what belongs to us is safer.”