Sabine went upstairs first.
Her heels struck each step with sharp, impatient sounds. A moment later, Mrs. Voss appeared at the top of the stairs gripping the railing, her robe hanging loosely around her shoulders.
One side of her silver hair had come undone.
She looked smaller than she had ten minutes earlier.
Calder placed the leather folder on the kitchen table.
“We have an offer for the house,” he said.
Mrs. Voss descended slowly.
“I already answered you.”
“You answered us before.”
“My answer hasn't changed.”
Bram took out a pen and laid it across the documents.
“The buyer needs a decision by Friday.”
“I am not selling.”
Sabine folded her arms.
“You cannot keep maintaining this place.”
“I have managed for years.”
“You're eighty-one.”
“I know how old I am.”
Calder opened the folder.
“You have stairs. Medical bills. Repairs. You can't keep pretending this house is manageable.”
Mrs. Voss looked at the papers but did not touch them.
“It is my house.”
Sabine glanced toward me.
“You're paying some college kid to push a mop around once a week.”
“Every Thursday,” I said.
She ignored me.
Bram slid the pen closer to his mother.
“Sign it and we'll take care of everything.”
Mrs. Voss's hand trembled.
I had seen those hands struggle with a saucepan. I had watched her divide a potato because there wasn't enough food for two meals. But I had never seen her look helpless until that moment.
I picked up the pen.
Calder extended his hand.
Instead of giving it to him, I placed it back inside the folder and closed it.
“She said no.”
All three of them looked at me.
Sabine's expression changed first.
“This is family business.”
“Then family should visit without bringing property papers.”
Bram stepped toward me.
“You clean toilets here. Don't confuse that with having authority.”
Mrs. Voss's fingers closed around my sleeve.
They were cold.
I opened the front door.
“You should leave.”
No one moved for several seconds.
Then Calder took the folder.
As he passed me, he stopped.
“You have no idea whose house you walked into.”
The door shut behind them.
For a while, neither Mrs. Voss nor I spoke.
I returned to the sink and began washing the three untouched cups.
She sat at the kitchen table.
Her shoulders shook.
“I am sorry.”
“You didn't do anything.”
“I let them speak to you that way.”
“They were the ones who were rude.”
She looked toward the hallway.
The blue door stood there exactly as it always had.
Locked.
Silent.
Waiting.
“This house isn't empty, Merrick.”
I dried my hands.
“What is inside that room?”
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a small brass key.
She placed it on the table.
“I haven't opened it in seventeen years.”
I stared at the key.
“Why not?”
“Because some doors are easier to lock than to close.”
That answer made no sense.
She saw my expression.
“Lucan.”
The name hung between us.
“You said he was your youngest son.”
“He was.”
“Where is he?”
Her fingers moved toward the key but stopped before touching it.
“He died.”
“When?”
She looked at the blue door.
“I was told he did.”
I felt a chill move across my shoulders.
“Told by whom?”
“My husband.”
Her voice had become quieter.
“What happened to him?”
“I never learned everything.”
She finally picked up the key.
“But my children know.”
Before I could ask what she meant, a car passed outside.
Mrs. Voss flinched.
The key slipped from her fingers.
It struck the table.
That was when I noticed the sound of another vehicle slowing outside.
She whispered, “Don't go near the window.”
I froze.
The vehicle continued down the street.
Only then did she breathe normally again.
“You're frightened of them,” I said.
“No.”
“Mrs. Voss.”
She looked at me.
“I am frightened of what they believe belongs to them.”
The following Thursday, Sabine called before I arrived.
“Do not interfere with family matters again.”
“I didn't.”
“You encouraged Mother.”
“She made her own decision.”
“She is old.”
“So?”
“She isn't capable of understanding everything.”
I looked at the phone.
“Then why does she understand you want her house?”
There was silence.
“You should find another job.”
Then she hung up.
I went anyway.
Mrs. Voss was waiting at the door.
She had dressed carefully.
Her hair was pinned up.
On the kitchen table sat two cups of tea.
“You came.”
“You asked me to.”
She smiled.
Then she looked past me toward the street.
“Lock the door.”
I did.
For the next hour, she told me about Lucan.
He had been different from his siblings.
He hated the printing business.
He wanted to study photography.
He had a habit of taking pictures of people when they weren't posing.
“He saw things,” she said.
“What kind of things?”
“Things people preferred not to see.”
She opened a drawer and removed an old photograph.
Lucan stood beside a younger version of the house.
His right hand rested against his hip.
The smallest finger curved inward.
I stared at the photograph.
“That's him.”
“Yes.”
“He looks familiar.”
Mrs. Voss studied me.
“That is what frightened me when you first came here.”
I laughed nervously.
“I don't look like him.”
“No.”
She turned the photograph over.
“You hold your hand like him.”
On the back was a date from twenty-eight years earlier.
Under it, someone had written a single sentence.
“Don't let them erase him.”
“Who wrote that?”
Mrs. Voss folded the photograph in her palm.
“I don't know.”
“You've had it all these years.”
“I was afraid to ask.”
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid of the answer.”
The next week, she finally told me what happened to Lucan.
He had disappeared after an argument with his father.
The family was told he had left town.
Then the story changed.
He had supposedly moved overseas.
Later, Sabine said he had died.
No death certificate was ever shown to Mrs. Voss.
No funeral.
No grave.
No ashes.
Nothing.
“What did your husband say?”
“He told me Lucan had done something terrible.”
“What?”
“He never said.”
I looked toward the blue door.
“And that room?”
“My husband put Lucan's things there.”
“Then why is it still locked?”
Mrs. Voss looked down.
“Because after my husband died, I found something inside.”
“What?”
She didn't answer.
Instead, she asked me to bring her the old wooden box from the upstairs closet.
Inside were letters.
Most were unopened.
Some were addressed to Lucan.
Others were addressed to Mrs. Voss.
Every envelope carried the same handwriting.
I opened none of them.
“Why didn't you read these?”
“Because my daughter told me they were worthless.”
That sentence stayed with me.
The next Thursday, Mrs. Voss was waiting beside the blue door.
The brass key rested in her hand.
“I think I am ready.”
She inserted it into the lock.
Then stopped.
“What if I am not?”
“You don't have to open it.”
She looked at me.
“No. I do.”
The lock turned.
The door opened two inches.
A smell drifted through the gap.
Not dust.
Not mildew.
Paper.
Old paper.
Mrs. Voss's face changed.
She whispered, “I remember that smell.”
Then she opened the door wider.
Inside were shelves filled with boxes.
Photographs.
Ledgers.
Envelopes.
And on the floor sat a battered suitcase bearing a name I had never heard before.
Merrick.
My last name.
Mrs. Voss looked at me.
I looked at the suitcase.
Neither of us moved.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: My last name was written on a suitcase hidden for nearly three decades, and the woman I had called Mrs. Voss suddenly stopped looking at me like a stranger
Twenty dollars was supposed to keep me in school, but the old woman at the end of the street seemed to be waiting for something only she remembered
Part 2 of 28
