So I went back outside. The same table. The same heat. The same engines and voices at the dock.

     

I am Mrs. Concealment. I give them only a glimpse of my dissatisfaction so they know I’m not a phony, merely a hypocrite.

     

It didn’t matter that I didn’t like them, what mattered was that they loved me. I knew how to make people love me.

     

The other dads shifted, offering to squeeze me in, but I told them not to worry about it. I said I was fine.

     

Maintaining the gap between the self I present and the self I actually am requires constant vigilance.