Water for Elephants

by Sara Gruen

Must protect my little pockets of happiness.

In the entire history of our marriage, it was the only secret I kept from her, and eventually it became impossible to fix. With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.

I also incorporated the horrific and very real tragedy of Jamaica ginger paralysis, which devastated the lives of approximately one hundred thousand Americans between 1930 and 1931.