“Even the ones when I was angry?”

“Especially those.”

I looked up.

“There’s one from three years ago about the garage.”

“I remember.”

“That one wasn’t nice.”

“You were right.”

“You kept it anyway?”

“Because it was real.”

He looked at the box.

“That’s why I love these notes. You never perform in them. You write whatever is true that morning, fold it, and hand it to me.”

His voice softened.

“I’ve carried the truth of our life in my pocket for twelve years.”

I looked at the photograph of myself laughing in the kitchen.

“When did you take that?”

“Two years ago.”

“I never noticed.”

“You were talking to your sister and started laughing. I had my phone out.”

“Why keep it here?”

Edward looked around his office.

“Because when I sit at this desk, I want to remember why any of this matters.”

He gestured toward the drawings.

“I love the work.”

Then he looked at me.

“But the work isn’t why I have a reason to go home.”

The room went quiet.

Margaret appeared in the doorway.

“Sorry. Edward, the Morrison presentation is at two.”

He looked at me.

I looked at the box of notes.

“Go.”

“Rachel…”

“I’m not leaving.”

I took another note from the box.

“We have a lot to discuss, but you have a presentation and Jamie gets out of school at three-thirty. I need some time.”

Edward nodded.

“Stay as long as you want. Ask anybody anything.”

I looked toward the employees outside.

“They all know?”

“They know you from the photographs.”

He almost smiled.

“And from the notes.”

“You read my notes to your employees?”

“Sometimes.”

I shook my head.

“They’ve all been waiting nine years for this secret to explode?”

“Pretty much.”

Then Edward admitted something else.

“I really was going to tell you tonight.”

“Why tonight?”

“Margaret gave me an ultimatum.”

From the doorway, Margaret said,

“If he didn’t tell you by Friday, I was going to.”

I looked at her.

“You seem sensible.”

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