She had been keeping a secret from him for six months. It was not a dark secret. It was not a betrayal. It was a quiet, private hope that she had never spoken aloud, even to herself, until recently. She wanted to go back to school. She wanted to change careers entirely, to leave the safe path she had been walking and pursue something that had no guarantee of success. She had not told him because she was afraid. Not afraid that he would forbid her, or mock her, or leave her. Afraid of something softer and harder to name. Afraid that if she spoke the dream out loud, and he did not receive it with the enthusiasm she desperately wanted, the dream would die. She was protecting the dream by keeping it hidden. And in protecting the dream, she was also hiding herself.