I’ve never been the kind of man who puts his life on the internet. At 76, retired Navy, I’ve spent most of my years believing some doors stay closed because the people you love ask you to trust them. For decades, that belief held firm. But two weeks ago, with my wife in rehab after a bad fall, our quiet Vermont house started making sounds that didn’t feel like settling wood or winter wind. Every night, the same slow scratching above the kitchen—right under the attic she had kept padlocked for more than fifty years. At first, I ignored it, telling myself it was imagination. Curiosity, however, has a way of gnawing at a man. By midnight one sleepless night, I did something I’d promised myself I’d never do: I broke the lock.
The attic smelled of old cedar and dust. Stacks of boxes, folded sheets, and forgotten furniture stretched into shadowed corners. It was exactly as she had said it would be—unremarkable, except for one heavy oak trunk in the far corner, locked with a padlock that seemed made for a safe. Something in my gut told me that the trunk was the source of the house’s strange whispers. I didn’t tell Martha I’d seen it that night. I didn’t tell her I’d handled the lock. I waited.
The next day at the care facility, I asked her casually about the attic. Expecting a little sigh or gentle reproach, I got none of that. Instead, her face drained of color, her hands trembled, and she whispered, “Tell me you didn’t open it.” Her fear told me the truth before I even knew it. That night, I returned with bolt cutters. The padlock gave way with a hard snap, and the trunk creaked open like a secret exhaling itself.
Inside were hundreds of letters, tied with faded ribbons, yellowed with age. They spanned the years from when we married through the late ’70s. Each one addressed to Martha, each one signed simply: Daniel. At first, I assumed they were some relic of a youthful romance, sentimental words that time had rendered harmless. Then I read them.
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