MY FATHER LOOKED ME DEAD IN THE EYE AND ASKED FOR A STRANGE FAVOR
The doctor cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses, and my stomach dropped like a stone, even before he spoke.
His room smelled faintly of antiseptic and that stale, metallic tang of an old hospital. Dad, usually so vibrant, lay pale against the white pillow, his eyes, usually sharp and twinkling, now cloudy and fixed on some distant point on the ceiling. He just stared for a long moment, then slowly, painfully, turned his head to me.
He coughed, a dry, raspy sound that clawed at my throat, and said, his voice barely a whisper, “Promise me you’ll find the blue box under the loose floorboard in the study.” I frowned, my mind still reeling from the diagnosis. “Dad, what blue box? We really need to talk about your treatment options, not some old box.”
He cut me off, a sudden surge of strength in his voice, now firmer, more urgent. “It’s not just a box, kiddo. It’s… it’s everything. Everything they never told you. My side of the family, the truth about the fire.” The hum of the fluorescent lights above grew louder, a persistent, unnerving whine in the sudden silence.
Just then, a nurse bustled in, clipboard in hand, her cheerful demeanor jarring against the gravity of the moment. “Time for your medication, Mr. Evans. Family, if you could step out for a moment, please? He needs his rest.”
As I walked out, I saw my aunt in the hallway, clutching a small, blue box and shaking her head.
👇 Full story continued in the comments…I stopped dead in my tracks. “Aunt Carol? What… what’s that box?”
She jumped, startled, and quickly tucked the small blue box behind her back. Her face, usually soft and kind, was etched with worry. “Oh, honey. Just… just some things I was tidying up for your father. Nothing important.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
My mind raced. A *small* blue box. Dad said *the* blue box was under a loose floorboard in the study. Were there *two*? Or was this the one? But why would she have it? And why hide it?
“Dad just asked me to find a blue box under the loose floorboard in the study,” I said, my voice tight. “He said it was everything. About the family, the fire…”
Aunt Carol’s face paled further. She glanced back towards Dad’s room, then gripped my arm, pulling me gently down the hallway away from the door. “Listen to me, honey. Your father is very ill. He’s… confused sometimes. That box, the one *he* mentioned, it’s just… old memories. Please, don’t trouble yourself with it now. He needs peace.”
“He seemed pretty clear to me, Aunt Carol,” I insisted, my frustration growing. “He said it was the truth.”
She sighed, a deep, weary sound. “Some truths are best left buried, dear. Especially when someone is fragile.” She squeezed my arm again, her eyes pleading, before hurrying off down the hall towards the waiting room.
I stood there, rooted to the spot. The small blue box she’d hidden. The blue box Dad wanted me to find. The conflicting messages. My father’s urgency felt too real to dismiss as mere confusion. The diagnosis, the scent of the hospital, the mystery box – it was all swirling together.
Later that night, unable to shake the feeling of unease and obligation, I went to my parents’ house. The air in the study felt heavy, the scent of old books and pipe tobacco thick. My father’s desk was neat, but the floorboards were worn and creaked underfoot. I ran my hand over the polished wood, listening.
Finally, near the fireplace, I felt it – a slight give, a board that wasn’t quite flush. With a bit of effort, I managed to pry it up. And there it was, nestled in the dusty cavity: a metal box, painted a chipped, deep blue. It was heavier than I expected.
My hands trembled as I lifted it out. It wasn’t small like the one Aunt Carol had. This was a sturdy, lockable box, though the lock was old and easily pried open with a letter opener from the desk.
Inside, it wasn’t jewellery or money. There were bundles of old letters tied with ribbon, a faded photograph of a woman I didn’t recognize, several yellowed newspaper clippings, and a thick, bound journal.
I carefully unfolded a newspaper clipping. The headline sent a chill down my spine: “Evans Mill Fire Claims Lives.” The date was decades ago, years before I was born. Another clipping detailed the investigation, hinting at arson but ultimately concluding “cause unknown.”
The letters were harder to piece together, written in hurried, sometimes frantic script. They spoke of a secret arrangement, a business deal gone wrong, threats, and ultimately, a desperate plan involving the mill. There were names I knew – my grandfather, his business partner – and names I didn’t.
Then I opened the journal. It was my father’s handwriting, detailing the events leading up to the fire from *his* perspective, as a young man. He wrote about the pressure his father was under, a dangerous debt, and the partner who was threatening to ruin them. The ‘plan’ wasn’t to burn the mill down, but to stage a small fire, enough to collect insurance and pay off the debt. But something went terribly wrong. It spread faster than they anticipated. People didn’t get out in time.
The photograph fell out from the journal’s pages. It was the woman from the earlier picture, standing beside a younger version of my father. A note on the back simply said: “Sarah and I, before…” Sarah. A name I’d never heard. The journal mentioned her – a daughter of the business partner, someone my father cared for deeply, who was caught in the fire.
The journal entries grew more anguished after the fire, describing the cover-up, the lies told to the authorities and the family, the unbearable guilt. He wrote about his father’s partner threatening to expose them, forcing my grandfather into a lifetime of quiet subservience, and his own father’s slow decline under the weight of the secret. He wrote about how their side of the family was subtly ostracized, cut off from certain branches, the truth twisted and buried. The ‘truth about the fire’ was that it wasn’t just an accident or simple arson; it was a desperate act with tragic, unintended consequences, covered up by fear and complicity.
Aunt Carol’s words echoed in my mind: *Some truths are best left buried*. And my father’s: *Everything they never told you. My side of the family, the truth about the fire.* He hadn’t been confused. He had been trying, with what strength he had left, to pass on the burden of that truth, to finally unearth the secret that had defined his life and stained our family history. The small blue box Aunt Carol had must have contained innocuous things, a deliberate misdirection, or perhaps just personal effects she was sorting – a red herring that briefly pulled me away from the real secret hidden beneath the floorboards.
Holding the heavy journal, I felt the weight of decades of silence, the unspoken grief and shame that had shaped generations. It was a terrible legacy, but it was the truth. When I returned to the hospital the next day, I didn’t mention the box or its contents. My father was weaker, but his eyes found mine, a question in them. I simply nodded, a silent promise kept. I had found the blue box. The rest was now up to me, to decide what to do with the truth he had entrusted to me.