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Sara knew what was hidden inside Grissom's heart. By some prenatal instinct, or a past consciousness united with him, she had sensed it immediately, the first day she had met him. But to see it, openly applied to her, was disorienting.
She came to know the amiable side of his pathology, the attention to detail, that he lavished on her at the most unexpected moments. She came to see the intense sweetness that he kept in the secret of his heart and to know his innermost emotions.
Or so she thought for many years.
When they found each other again, in fact, after she joined him on the Ishmael, she realized that what she had known of him had been a sliver. Fine dust. It had only been a reflection of the greatness of his person. The dexterity he had shown in keeping that greatness hidden from her, for all those years, was a blinding and revealing glow.
Like an onion, from the very day of their reunion, Grissom stripped away his veils for good, showing his deepest and most intimate self. But when you peel an onion, you cry, and Sara, from then on and for a few months, cried. Not with every veil lifted, but often. Out of resentment, emotion, surprise, remorse. Or simple joy.
"You said you trusted me intimately," she told him one day, in this regard. Her voice contained not resentment or disappointment, but curiosity.
"I did say that," he replied, taking the last bite of fish from his plate. "But at some point, I thought it wasn't enough."
"And what else was missing?"
"That I didn't trust myself."