MY DAD WAS GIVEN DAYS TO LIVE, THEN I SAW THE NOTE UNDER HIS PILLOW
The doctor folded his hands and looked away, and I knew it was bad before he spoke a single word. The air in the small room felt thick with the smell of disinfectant and stale coffee. I gripped the cold plastic armrest of the chair, focusing on the slow, rhythmic beeping of the monitor beside his bed.
His eyes were closed, face pale against the crisp white pillowcase. I wanted to scream, but only a choked sound escaped. All this time, and he never said… never prepared me. As the harsh overhead light reflected off the sheets, I noticed a corner of something white tucked just out of sight under the pillow.
Reaching carefully, hand trembling as I tried not to disturb the tubes, I pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. My name was scrawled on the front in his shaky hand. Inside, just a few brief lines. “There are things you don’t know,” it read. “About the house. About your mother’s accident. It wasn’t just an accident.”
What could he possibly mean? My mother died in a crash years ago. The house? It’s just… the house. Ice-cold dread washed over me. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, panicked rhythm drowning out the beeping machine. I looked up, ready to ask him, to demand answers right now.
Then the curtain rustled and a nurse I didn’t recognize stepped through, holding another envelope.
👇 Full story continued in the comments…The nurse’s face was kind but firm. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said softly, her eyes glancing towards my father, then back at me. “Your father asked me to give you this when…” she trailed off, her voice heavy with unspoken words. She held out a thick, yellowed envelope. It felt heavy, almost like a book was inside. My name was written on it, again in my father’s trembling hand, but beneath it, smaller and neater, was a date from over twenty years ago.
I took the envelope, my fingers brushing hers. It felt warm, as if he had been holding it recently. My eyes flicked back to the note I held, then to the envelope. Two messages. One cryptic, delivered just before the end. The other, seemingly prepared long ago.
The doctor cleared his throat. “I’ll give you some time,” he murmured, backing away from the bed. The nurse nodded and quietly slipped out.
My gaze returned to my father. His breathing was shallow now, barely stirring the sheets. I wanted to shake him, to demand he explain the note, but I knew it was too late. He had chosen this way, this last, terrifying riddle.
Tucking his note safely into my pocket, I hesitated for a moment before tearing open the larger envelope. Inside wasn’t a book, but a bundle of papers, tied with faded ribbon. On top was a key, an old, ornate brass key I didn’t recognize. Below it were photographs, yellowed newspaper clippings, and what looked like diary entries or letters.
My eyes scanned the first page of handwritten text. It was my mother’s writing. My heart skipped a beat. I hadn’t seen her handwriting in years. It spoke of fear, of secrets, of something hidden deep within the walls of our old house. It mentioned a locked room, a ‘sanctuary’ she called it, where she kept things safe. It spoke of knowing too much, and of being afraid for our safety.
The date on the entry sent a chill down my spine. It was just weeks before the ‘accident’.
The newspaper clipping described the crash – a single car, losing control on a deserted stretch of road late at night. The official report stated fatigue. But the words in my mother’s letter, the key, the note from my father… they painted a different picture. My father’s note wasn’t a sudden confession of something he’d just remembered; it was a confirmation, a desperate final act to guide me towards a truth he had kept hidden, perhaps to protect me, for decades.
I looked at my father’s peaceful, fading face. He had held onto this, onto my mother’s secret and the truth about her death, for my entire life. The ‘accident’ wasn’t just an accident. And the house… it wasn’t just the house. It was a repository of a buried past.
Clutching the envelope and the key, I made a decision. I couldn’t stay here, watching the inevitable, not when these papers screamed of a truth that had been deliberately concealed. I had to go to the house. I had to find the locked room. I had to know what secrets my mother had kept, and why my father had waited until his last moments to send me on this terrifying treasure hunt. Leaving the hospital room felt wrong, like abandoning him, but a stronger, more urgent pull, driven by a lifetime of unanswered questions and a sudden, brutal clarity, was drawing me away. I had to uncover the truth that had shadowed our lives, hidden in plain sight, within the walls of the only home I had ever known.