Seven
This is what she said:
There are tightly locked doors behind which we put our pain so that the main rooms of our life remain uncluttered to those who observe us. But sometimes we forget to bar the doors sufficiently and, if the pressure of the pain behind the doors becomes too great, the detritus of our lives spills out into plain view, taking the doors down with it. And those who knew us in our tightly closed state are shocked and say that we are ‘unhinged’. But the unhinging of the door is a gift because, once the door is down, all is revealed to the bright light of day; and then, like a plant, we can absorb the light, and grow.
The next evening, with her work in order and two weeks leave stretching ahead of her, Kathryn sat in the armchair opposite her husband. She noticed the
