Did you do it? Did you mail them? Terrence leaned against my cubicle and raised an eyebrow.

I was going to put them through the letterbox, I said, strooping to remember when and what

I told him. It seemed like a waste of time to go to the post office and actually mail

them should get them all the same. He nodded, marriage is tough, he said, how long? 16 years.

He whistled between clenched teeth. That's a fair stretch. We had to do counselling ourselves,

nothing serious you know, but it's easy to stop looking at the other person as, well, a person.

Sharon Secrets is a good way to open that communication back up. That was a fair point and I

nodded to show my agreement, not that I wanted to get into any of this with my boss. It was personal

business. I wasn't even entirely sure how he knew we were having problems, let alone what homework

we'd been given by the therapist. Look, I began to say, while gesturing half-heartedly to my computer,

I've got work to, what did you write? He asked, what was your secret? The question caught me off

guard, and I'm sure my face showed it. But Terrence was unfazed. Come on, tell it, he added.

I decided to lie. I wrote that I don't enjoy a cooking as much as I say I do.

Oh please, he groaned while rolling his eyes. We both know she doesn't do the cooking. How,

the thing about marriage, he said, while suddenly pulling over an empty chair and sitting on it so

close to me that our knees touched. The thing is, you've got to learn to trust one another over

and above anything else. Does that make sense? Oh close, I could see sweat beating on his forehead.

No, I stammered. Put it like this, he said. You haven't had her first secret yet. You might be

wondering if she was going to post it to you, like the exercise required, or if she was going to

slip it under the kitchen table one morning, or if she would just hand it to you one on one,

no expression, nothing to say, other than, this is your sort of thing. But that doesn't really

matter, does it? You need to learn to trust that she's going to get it to you, no matter what.

...