Chapter 3: The Box on the Top Shelf
Diane's bedroom smelled like lavender and old wood.
I closed the door behind me and stood still for a moment, listening.
The house was quiet.
Carol had gone.
I crossed to the closet and opened it.
Dresses on the left.
Shoes lined up on the floor.
And there, on the top shelf, pushed back behind a folded blanket — a shoebox.
Plain white.
No label.
I lifted it down with both hands.
It was heavier than I expected.
I set it on the bed and opened it.
The first thing I saw was a photograph.
Nathan.
Young — maybe twenty-two, twenty-three.
Standing next to a woman I didn't recognize.
She was laughing, her head tilted toward his shoulder.
His arm was around her waist.
On the back, in Diane's handwriting: *Nathan and Lena.
June.*
No year.
I set the photo aside and kept going.
There were letters.
A stack of them, bound with a rubber band that had gone brittle with age.
The envelopes were addressed to Nathan, care of Diane's address.
The return address said only *L.
Marsh.*
I pulled the rubber band free.
It snapped.
The top letter was dated fourteen years ago — three years before Nathan and I met.
*Nathan, I don't know how many times I can write this before I stop.
Your mother told me again that you don't want contact.
I need to hear that from you.
Not from her.
Please.*
My hands were steady.
My breathing was not.
I pulled the next letter.
Same handwriting.
A year later.
*I'm not angry anymore.
I just want to understand.
She said you moved on.
She said you asked her to return my letters unopened.
Did you?
Because that doesn't sound like the man I knew.*
I sat down on the edge of Diane's bed.
The letters kept going.
Seven of them.
Each one a little shorter than the last.
Each one a little quieter.
The final one was barely half a page.
*I won't write again after this.
I just want you to know that I don't blame you.
I think I finally understand what happened.
I hope you're happy, Nathan.
I really do.
— Lena*
I read that last line twice.
Then I looked at the photograph again.
Nathan and Lena.
June.
No year.
I thought about the necklace around Diane's neck.
The TV.
The weekend trip.
The way she had laughed at me across her dinner table and said, *a man should always love his mother more than his wife.*
I thought about how Nathan had looked at his wine instead of at me.
I put the letters back in the box.
I put the photograph on top.
I closed the lid.
Then I opened it again and took the photograph out.
I slipped it into my bag.
I put the box back exactly where I'd found it, pushed behind the folded blanket on the top shelf.
I smoothed the blanket so it looked undisturbed.
I walked back downstairs, through the front door, and locked it behind me with the spare key.
I sat in my car for a long time without starting the engine.
Diane had kept those letters for fourteen years.
She had told this woman — Lena — that Nathan didn't want contact.
She had returned the letters unopened, in Nathan's name, without Nathan knowing.
Or had Nathan known?
May you like
That was the question I couldn't answer yet.
And until I could, I wasn't going to say a word.
