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.
“I will come back for you and our son when the time is right.”
Our son.
The letters spoke about a boy named James.
My firstborn.
The boy I had raised.
The boy I believed was mine.
The next morning I confronted Martha.
Through tears she told me the truth.
Before she met me, she had been engaged to a young man named Daniel. He was drafted to Vietnam in 1966. Shortly after he left, she discovered she was pregnant.
Then news came that his plane had been shot down.
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