I wondered what he'd been hiding.
The small key slid into the lock. I turned it.
Inside were envelopes bundled with twine, a small stack of bank receipts, and something wrapped in tissue paper.
My hands trembled as I unwrapped it.
It was a newborn hospital bracelet. It was pink. The date printed on it made my knees weaken. It was from eight years earlier. The exact month Daniel and I had separated for three months after one of our worst fights.
"No," I breathed. "No, no, no."
It was a newborn hospital bracelet. It was pink.
I checked the name. Ava.
I swallowed hard and reached for the stack of envelopes.
The first one I opened wasn't in Daniel's handwriting.
"Daniel,
I can't keep doing this halfway. Ava is getting older. She asks why you don't stay. I don't know what to tell her anymore. I need you to choose. Please don't make me raise her alone while you go back to your real life.
C."
I checked the name.
I opened another.
"Daniel,
I know you think you're protecting everyone, but you're hurting us. If you loved me, you wouldn't keep going back. Leave her. Be with us. Ava deserves that. Please."
The words blurred as tears filled my eyes.
I dug deeper and found a letter in Daniel's handwriting.
I opened another.
He called the woman "Caroline" and revealed he wasn't going to leave the kids and me, that he loved us and Ava, whom he wouldn't abandon financially, but he couldn't give her what she was asking for.
I pressed the paper against my chest.
He didn't leave us. But he'd lied daily.
Then I discovered printed bank transfers. They were monthly payments for years.
I grabbed one of the envelopes that looked like the one in the box on Caleb's bed.
He'd lied daily.
"Claire,
I told myself it was temporary. That I could fix it before you ever had to know.
I was wrong.
Ava didn't ask to be born into my failure. I cannot leave her with nothing.
The bigger key is for a safety deposit box at our bank. There are family heirlooms you can keep or sell.
I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I am asking for your mercy. Please meet her. Please help her if you can. It is the last thing I cannot fix myself."
"I told myself it was temporary."
I sat back against a box of Christmas decorations and stared at the beams overhead.
Daniel hadn't confessed because he wanted the truth to come out; he did it because he was dying. Because he knew he wouldn't be there to send the next check, and his secret would collapse without him.
I felt anger rising through my grief.
"You don't get to make this my responsibility! You don't get to die and leave me riddles!" I shouted into the attic.
Footsteps creaked below.
"You don't get to die and leave me riddles!"
"Mom?" Caleb called.
"I'm fine, sweetheart!" I lied again.
I shoved the papers into my arms and climbed down. Back in our bedroom, I spread everything across the bed. There was a return address on one of Caroline's letters. Birch Lane.
I didn't need a city name. It was ours and only 20 minutes away.
I gathered everything and placed it inside my bedside drawer.
I lied again.
If I waited, I would talk myself out of it.
So I walked over to my neighbor, Kelly, and asked if she could watch the kids for a few moments. She was a stay-at-home mom with an 11-year-old son, and she loved kids. Kelly gladly accepted and welcomed my little troops.
The oldest one looked at me suspiciously before entering Kelly's house.
Back home, I grabbed my keys.
The drive to Birch Lane felt unreal.
