The attic.
Every time I asked Martha about it, she gave the same answer.
“Just old junk, Gerry. Furniture from my parents’ place.”
So I left it alone.
For more than five decades.
Two weeks ago Martha slipped in the kitchen and broke her hip while baking a pie for our grandson’s birthday. The doctors said she’d need surgery and several weeks of rehab.
For the first time in years, I was alone in the house.
That’s when I started hearing the noise.
Late in the evenings, something upstairs made a slow scratching sound. Not like mice. Not like squirrels.
Heavier.
Like something being dragged across the floor.
After a few nights of listening to it, curiosity finally got the better of me.
I took Martha’s key ring from the kitchen drawer and climbed the stairs. I tried every key on that ring.
None of them opened the attic door.
That bothered me more than the noise itself.
Martha kept keys for everything on that ring.
Except the attic.
Finally I went to the garage, grabbed a screwdriver, and forced the old lock open.
The door creaked loudly when it gave way.
The first thing that hit me was the smell — old dust, paper, and something metallic that made my stomach twist.
My flashlight beam moved across the room.
Boxes everywhere. Old furniture under sheets.
Exactly like Martha had always described.
But in the far corner sat an old oak trunk with another heavy lock.
That trunk hadn’t been mentioned.
The next day I visited Martha at the rehab center and casually asked about it.
The reaction on her face told me everything I needed to know.
Her hands started shaking.
“You didn’t open it, did you?” she whispered.
That night I couldn’t sleep.
Around midnight I went back upstairs with a pair of bolt cutters.
The lock snapped.
Inside the trunk were hundreds of letters tied together with faded ribbon.
The oldest ones were dated 1966 — the same year Martha and I got married.
All of them were written to her.
And all of them were signed by the same man.
Daniel.
One sentence appeared in letter after letter.
