But unshed tears can turn rancid. So can memory. So can biting your tongue. My bad nights were beginning. I couldn't sleep.

And if I talk to him, I'll say something wrong, give something away. I can feel it coming, a betrayal of myself.

There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.

The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn't one.

Knowing this secret, being the only one chosen to know, makes me feel important in a way. But it’s a negative importance, it’s the importance of a blank sheet of paper. I can know because I don’t count. I feel singled out, but also bereft.