My Husband Said He Was out of Town for Work – Then I Found Him Digging a Hole Behind Our Lake House, Yelling, ‘Don’t Come Closer!’
Then I saw it. Through the kitchen window, past the little herb garden I’d planted last spring, was a freshly dug pit. Not a small one. Not a gardening one, either. It was a deep, dark, human-sized pit with a mountain of fresh earth beside it.
“What in God’s name…” I breathed against the window.
I stumbled around the house toward the backyard. The hole was even bigger than it had looked through the window. Dark soil was scattered everywhere. A shovel was thrust into the dirt pile like a gravestone marker.
That’s when I heard the scraping of metal against earth. Someone was still digging.
“Adam?”
The scraping stopped.
A terrified woman peeking through a hole in the wall | Source: Pexels
Then Adam’s head appeared over the edge of the pit. Dirt was streaked across his forehead. Sweat soaked his shirt. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. Or maybe like he’d become one.
“MIA?? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here? You’re supposed to be in Portland!”
He scrambled out of the pit, clutching the shovel like a weapon. His hands were still shaking. “Mia, don’t come any closer.”
“Adam, what are you hiding? I stepped toward him. “You lied to my face and drove off with your suitcase, and now I find you here digging holes in our backyard like some kind of…”
“Mia, please. Just stop. Don’t come closer.”
A person holding a shovel | Source: Freepik
“Why not? What’s down there?”
“Nothing. Just trust me, okay? I’m trying to fix something.”
“Fix what?”
I hurried straight past him to the edge of the pit. I looked down into that dark earth, and froze.
Bones… old and yellowed, wrapped in what looked like ancient cloth lay there. A skull rested near the edge, grinning up at me through the shadows.
“Oh my God! Oh my God, Adam. What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Adam dropped the shovel and reached for me, but I jerked away. “Mia, listen to me. I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Then whose human remains are those?” I pointed at the pit with a trembling finger.
A startled woman | Source: Pexels
“My great-grandfather’s.”
“Your what?”
“My great-grandfather. Dad told me last week when I visited him at Sunset Manor.” Adam wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving another streak of dirt. “You know how his memory comes and goes. Most of what he says doesn’t make sense anymore. But last week, he grabbed my arm and said something that’s been eating at me ever since.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he remembered watching her bury his grandfather. Right here. In this yard. He was 12 years old.”
“Who?”
