Secrets fascinated me. What a thrill to know something that no one else does. You decide whom to tell and when to tell it. I used to spend hours collecting treasures from around the house—feathers, rocks from the beach, doll shoes, or my mother’s perfume bottles—and hiding them in a wooden box I called my “secret hiding place.” Then I’d try to get my brothers and sisters to guess where it was. Even if they said they weren’t interested, which was often, I’d tell them anyway. Then I’d start over again. But secrets also made me nervous. Secrets required discipline, a quality I knew that I sorely
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