The Husband's secret

Secrets are a funny thing.  Once you know someone’s secret you cannot stop thinking about it or ignore it.  It doesn’t matter whether it is a good secret or a bad one.  It is always there.  You know it and the person whose secret it is knows it as well. Dealing with the secret is another matter.  Do you keep it to yourself or do you share it with someone? Sometimes knowing someone’s secret is a burden that feels like at times it is going to crush you.

I seem to have picked two books in a row that deals with peoples’ secrets.  In The Dinner family members shared the burden of a secret amongst themselves trying to rationalize what it meant and also trying to figure out how to deal with it.

In The Husband’s Secret, wives have to deal with what they have learned.  Cecelia finds a letter from her husband when she is up in the attic looking for something for her daughter.  The letter falls out onto the floor.  It is addressed to her and is from her husband to be opened in the event of his death.  He is very much alive and she wrestles with the idea of opening the letter now.  It is so tempting.  What should she do?

Tess thinks she is in a happy marriage until one day her husband comes to her with a confession.  Her world shatters and she packs up her son and leaves the house.  The separation from her husband gives her time to really examine herself and actually discover things about herself.

How does the book end?  You will have to read it.