“Later” kept moving further away as the months went by.
Yesterday, my oldest child, Jane, came over. She didn’t ask. That’s just how she is.
“Mom,” she said, setting her bag down. “I’m going to help you pack Dad’s things today.”
Jane gave me that look, the one she gets from Martin.
“You don’t have to do it alone.”
That was enough.
So, for the first time in several months, I went into my late husband’s office.
I stayed near the doorway at first, just looking. Jane moved ahead, opening shelves, stacking papers as she always does when she’s trying to stay busy.
I rolled toward the desk.
I was sorting through things, and that’s when I noticed it. One of the drawers wouldn’t open. I pulled again. Nothing.
“Jane,” I said. “Did you know about this?”
“About what?”
“This drawer. It’s locked.”
She frowned. “Dad didn’t lock his drawers.”
But here it was.
Locked.
And suddenly, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Had it always been like that?
Or had he done it recently?
And why?
Honestly, I’d never noticed it before.
I rolled into our bedroom and looked for the key in the one place it could be: Martin’s favorite jacket. It was hanging in the closet, right where he’d left it.
I reached into the pocket and pulled out the keys.
I went back to the desk.
Jane had followed quietly behind me, watching.
“You don’t have to open it right now.”
But I did. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew that whatever was inside that drawer mattered, although the lock gave me a bad feeling.
I slid the key in with trembling hands. Then I turned it.
The lock clicked.
Inside the drawer was a stack of neatly tied letters, dozens of them, maybe more.
That feeling about the lock was right.
My heart pounded against my ribs.
My first thought didn’t even make sense.
Who writes letters anymore?
My second thought made me blink a couple of times.
Who had my husband been writing to?
Then I picked one up and turned the envelope over.
And that’s when everything inside me dropped.
The name written there, I hadn’t seen it in over 50 years!
Dolly!
For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
Dolly was my younger sister, the one I hadn’t spoken to since forever.
And now her name was sitting in my hands, in Martin’s handwriting.
“Mom?” Jane said softly behind me.
I didn’t answer because nothing about this made sense.
Martin and Dolly together?
No. That wasn’t possible.
He would have told me. My husband told me everything.
Didn’t he?
My vision started to blur, but I needed to know what Martin had been hiding from me.
I slid my finger under the envelope and opened the first letter I’d grabbed. I unfolded it slowly.
My hands were shaking now.
I looked down at the first line, and the moment I read it, the air left my lungs.
“She still talks about you in her sleep.”
I don’t remember dropping the letter. But now it was on the floor.
Jane was beside me now. “Mom… what is it?”
She picked up the envelope and read the name. Her eyes widened. “Aunt Dolly?”
I nodded, but my focus was still on the letter on the floor. Jane bent to pick it up and gave it back to me.
I forced myself to keep reading.
“She still talks about you in her sleep. Sometimes it’s your name. Sometimes it’s just laughter I haven’t heard in years. I don’t think she knows she’s doing it. I thought you should know.
—Martin.”
Jane sat slowly in Martin’s chair. “Dad was writing to her?”
“For years,” I said, my voice barely steady.
Because the dates were right there.
The letter I was holding was over 20 years old!
We went through the stack together. Some envelopes had stamps. Others had been returned, marked with old forwarding labels or crossed-out addresses.
Dolly had written back.
Not all the time, but enough to tell me this wasn’t a one-time thing.
This had been happening for decades!
I found one letter in Dolly’s handwriting.
Jane leaned closer.
I ignored her and opened it.
“Martin,
I don’t know why I’m writing back. I told myself I wouldn’t. But you keep writing as if I’m still part of something I walked away from. Tell her I’m fine. Or don’t. Maybe it’s better if she thinks I don’t care. But I do, more than I should. I just don’t know how to fix something that’s been broken this long.
—Dolly.”
I pressed the letter to my chest.
All those years and that silence. She had been right there.
Writing back.
Missing me.
“I don’t understand,” Jane said quietly. “Why didn’t Dad tell you?”
“I don’t know.”
But deep down… I think I did.
