My husband and I have been together for seventy-two years.

The film ran out. The screen turned white, then black. A silence fell over the room, so deep that I could hear my heart beating—slowly, evenly, as if for the first time in seventy-two years it was beating just for me.

I stood up. I walked over to the wall, where the light from the projector still flickered. I pressed my forehead to the cold surface. And for the first time in all these years, I cried—not from grief, not from loss, but from a strange, almost unbearable relief.

Somewhere in the depths of the house, under the stairs, in the now empty storage room, I thought I heard a quiet, very quiet sigh.

It was as if someone had finally exhaled after holding their breath for a long, long time.