**THE LOCKED DRAWER**
Dad always warned us kids never to touch it. Said it held important documents, things we wouldn’t understand. For years, we obeyed. Now he’s gone.
Mom’s gone too, a year before him. Leaving me alone in this house, the only one who remembers his warnings. But curiosity gnaws at me. What could be so important?
My fingers tremble as I slide the key into the lock. It clicks open. Inside, a stack of yellowed envelopes, all addressed to someone named “Delores.” ⬇️
Inside, nestled amongst the brittle envelopes, was a worn leather-bound journal. My breath hitched. Delores… a name I’d never heard. My parents, fiercely private, had kept a vault of secrets, and this was the key. The journal’s pages, filled with elegant cursive, spoke of a passionate, clandestine love affair. Dad’s handwriting, unmistakably his, detailed stolen moments, whispered conversations under starlit skies, and the agonizing pain of separation. Delores lived in a small coastal town – a town I knew, a town I’d visited with my parents years ago, a town they’d vehemently claimed to dislike.
A cold dread seeped into my bones. This wasn’t just a forgotten romance; it was a betrayal. Mom… had she known? The last envelope held a faded photograph: a younger, vibrant Mom, her hand resting possessively on Dad’s shoulder, a third person standing beside them – a woman with kind eyes and a familiar smile, the very image of the woman mentioned in the journal. Delores.
Suddenly, a sharp rap echoed from the front door. My heart leaped into my throat. I quickly shoved the journal and the envelopes back into the drawer, locking it with trembling hands. Through the peephole, I saw a woman, her face etched with a familiar sorrow, yet a steely resolve in her eyes. Delores.
“Hello?” she called, her voice raspy but strong. “I’m looking for… for my family.”
I hesitated, the weight of my parents’ secret pressing down on me. The lie formed easily on my lips. “Wrong house,” I said, my voice a dry rasp.
She didn’t budge. “I know your father. We have a shared… history. He spoke often of a son.”
My throat tightened. Should I tell her? Reveal the decades-old deception? The image of my mother’s face flickered in my mind. Her pain, her silence, echoed in my own uncertainty.
Delores sighed, a sound heavy with years of waiting. “He left me a small inheritance,” she said, a hint of a smile playing on her lips, “a cottage near the sea. I just wanted to ensure it reached the right hands.” She produced a key, identical to the one I’d just used. “It’s all in his name. It will be yours.”
She turned to leave, and I watched her walk away, the weight of the secret still heavy, but the sharpness of betrayal strangely dulled. The cottage by the sea—a place my parents had always dismissed—now represented not only a material inheritance but a legacy of unspoken love, a painful truth revealed only partially, a truth I would forever have to grapple with, and perhaps keep hidden from the future. The drawer remained locked, but the secret was now subtly shared, not in words, but in a quiet inheritance, and the lingering image of a woman whose story mirrored my own conflicted emotions. The ending wasn’t resolution, but a poignant acknowledgment of the enduring power of secrets, and the bittersweet acceptance of a complicated family history.