David and I went to counseling, to learn how to be people who could actually tell each other the truth.

And we made one unbreakable rule in our home: no one ever has to pretend they are fine just to make things easier for everyone else.

A year later we drove back to New Mexico, and Thomas, still at his fruit stand, handed three-year-old Maya a ripe peach, and she beamed up at him and said, “Thank you, Grandpa Thomas,” and the old man had to tip his hat down over his face, and I did not correct her.

We walked up the hill to my mother’s grave, and Maya set down a drawing she had made — four figures holding hands under a bright yellow sun — and I sat in the warm desert wind and whispered, “I’m still learning, Mom.” Because I finally understood what that terrible security recording had really been.