The attic was colder than I remembered.
Ethan climbed the narrow stairs ahead of me, one hand sliding along the wall for balance. The red dress made a faint whispering sound with every step. Behind us, Daniel's friend followed more slowly, carrying the old photograph against her chest. The principal stayed downstairs. He said he would wait until we were ready.
At the top, Ethan switched on the small lamp.
Dust floated through the yellow light.
Nothing had changed.
The old trunk still stood against the far wall beneath the sloping roof. A thin layer of dust covered its lid, except where Ethan's fingers had disturbed it months earlier. I stopped several feet away.
For seventeen years, I had avoided that particular corner.
Now my son stood beside it.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
I nodded.
He knelt.
The lock had already been opened.
Ethan lifted the lid.
The smell came first.
Cedar.
Old paper.
Fabric.
Something faintly sweet that reminded me of the perfume I had worn when I was nineteen.
I covered my mouth.
Inside were the things I had refused to throw away.
Daniel's red jacket.
A pair of photographs.
A folded blanket.
The hospital envelope.
Several letters.
And beneath them, a small wooden box I did not remember seeing.
Ethan reached toward it.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
I knelt beside him.
“I don't remember that.”
The woman came closer.
“Neither do I.”
I looked at her.
“That means Daniel put it there.”
She nodded.
Ethan lifted the box.
It was no larger than his hand. The wood was scratched and darkened with age. A narrow brass clasp held it shut.
There was no key.
“Maybe it doesn't need one,” Ethan said.
He pressed the clasp.
It opened.
Inside lay a folded piece of red fabric.
Underneath it was an envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Not Ethan's.
Mine.
I touched the paper.
My hand began shaking.
“You knew about this,” I said to the woman.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
She looked at Ethan.
“I think your son did.”
Ethan shook his head.
“I found the box three months ago.”
I looked at him.
“You found it and didn't tell me?”
“I wasn't sure what it was.”
“And now?”
“Now I think it was waiting for tonight.”
He handed me the envelope.
The paper was brittle.
I opened it carefully.
Inside was a photograph.
Daniel stood beside a hospital window.
He looked exhausted.
Young.
Alive.
He was holding something wrapped in a blanket.
My breath caught.
It was a newborn baby.
Ethan.
I stared at the photograph.
“I didn't know this existed.”
The woman leaned closer.
“Neither did I.”
I turned the photograph over.
There was a date.
The day after Ethan was born.
And beneath it, Daniel had written four words.
He looks like you.
I closed my eyes.
Daniel had seen him.
He had held him.
I had spent years believing that Daniel had died before knowing what Ethan looked like.
I was wrong.
“Why didn't you show me this?”
The woman looked stricken.
“I never had it.”
I looked at Ethan.
He was staring at the photograph.
“You knew?”
“No.”
He took a slow breath.
“I knew Daniel had visited the hospital.”
I looked at him.
“How?”
“The letter I found when I was fourteen.”
“What did it say?”
“That he had seen me.”
I stared at him.
“And you never told me?”
“You never asked.”
The answer was gentle.
That somehow made it harder.
I returned to the box.
Beneath the photograph was a small folded card.
This time there was no name.
Only a date.
Tomorrow.
Ethan looked at me.
“That's today.”
“No,” I said.
He checked the card.
“It's tomorrow.”
I felt a chill.
The card had been written seventeen years earlier.
Yet the date was tomorrow.
Daniel could not have known the exact date of Ethan's graduation.
Unless he had.
I turned toward the woman.
“What did Daniel know about tomorrow?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“Then why write this?”
She took the card.
Her face changed.
“He knew the graduation date.”
“How?”
“Because you told him.”
I searched my memory.
Then I remembered.
Daniel had once joked that he would attend Ethan's graduation even if he had to come back from the dead.
I had laughed.
I had told him the date would be in June.
He had said, “Then I'll remember.”
But Ethan's graduation was not in June.
The school had moved it to September years later.
The card could not possibly refer to this day.
Ethan noticed something written beneath the date.
A single word.
Wait.
He looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
The woman sat on the attic floor.
She looked suddenly exhausted.
“There is something I never told you.”
I turned toward her.
“Tell me now.”
She held the photograph of Daniel.
“Daniel knew about the accident before it happened.”
My blood ran cold.
“What?”
“Not exactly.”
She explained.
He had received warnings about the road where he died. The vehicle had been unreliable. Someone had told him not to drive that night.
“Who?”
She hesitated.
“Your husband.”
My heart stopped.
“Daniel's brother?”
She nodded.
“They had argued.”
I remembered that night.
My husband had been angry.
Daniel had laughed it off.
I had assumed it was another family disagreement.
But perhaps it had been more serious.
“What were they arguing about?”
She looked toward the trunk.
“Money.”
I stared at her.
“What money?”
“I don't know.”
Ethan stood.
“You knew?”
“No.”
The woman shook her head.
“Daniel didn't tell me everything.”
I looked at the letters.
The story I had believed for seventeen years was beginning to fracture.
Daniel's death had always been described as a terrible accident.
A tragic accident.
Bad timing.
A wet road.
A mechanical failure.
But now there were warnings.
An argument.
Money.
And a letter written before his death.
Ethan reached for another envelope.
It was sealed.
“Mom.”
I looked at him.
“This one has Dad's name on it.”
The attic became completely silent.
My husband's name.
I had not seen it connected to Daniel's belongings in years.
“Open it,” I said.
Ethan hesitated.
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
He broke the seal.
Inside was a single sheet.
He read the first paragraph.
Then his face changed.
“What?”
He handed it to me.
I read.
Daniel had written that he was sorry.
Not for dying.
For keeping a secret.
A secret about money.
A secret about a decision that could hurt the family.
A secret he had promised to reveal after Ethan was born.
I looked at the woman.
“What decision?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Ethan pointed to the bottom.
“There.”
A final sentence.
If anything happens to me, don't let him tell Ethan the truth before his mother does.
My hands went cold.
“Who is ‘him’?”
Ethan looked at me.
The answer came before either of us spoke.
His father.
My husband.
The man who had never once told Ethan there was anything more to Daniel's death.
I folded the letter.
Then the attic door creaked.
We both turned.
Nobody was standing there.
But from downstairs came the sound of the front door opening.
Someone had entered the house.
The woman rose quickly.
“Who knew we were coming here?”
I stared toward the stairs.
“I didn't tell anyone.”
Ethan moved closer to me.
Then we heard a man's voice from below.
My husband's voice.
“I know you're up there.”
Click Here to continue read next: PART6: My Husband Had Followed Us Home, and the Explanation He Gave for Daniel’s Final Night Was Nothing Like the Story I Remembered
The Red Dress Was Supposed to Be a Graduation Joke, Until My Son Put Something Old Into My Shaking Hands
Part 5 of 8
