We walked up the path together. I didn’t look back at the stand. The tomatoes were sitting there, cooling in the night air, but they didn’t matter. The secret was out in the open, and the silence of the house didn’t feel loud anymore. It felt like space. It felt like room to breathe.

I opened the front door and held it for her. I took a deep breath, the deepest one I had taken in forty years, and I walked into the light.