And she kept that door shut.

I had read all of it, for six months, as the considerate self-containment of a woman who did not want to be a burden.

Only yesterday, we had helped them pack the car and waved them off with tight hugs and, once the door closed, an enormous shared sigh of relief.

I have thought since about that sigh of relief, and about how ordinary and forgivable it was, and also about how it primed me for everything that followed.

Because relief at the departure of long guests is not the same as being glad to be rid of them; it is just the natural exhale of a household returning to its own rhythms, and every host on earth feels it and most of us feel a little guilty for feeling it.