Chapter 2: The box in Aunt Colleen’s attic
Chapter 2: The box in Aunt Colleen’s attic
Aunt Colleen lived in the yellow farmhouse at the edge of Millbrook, where the porch always smelled like lavender and old books.
She opened the door before I knocked.
“You came.”
She looked relieved.
More relieved than surprised.
I hugged her, and she held on a little longer than usual.
“Is Dany okay?”
“He’s with my neighbor.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
She didn’t ask about the barbecue.
That told me she already knew.
The attic was hotter than the rest of the house.
Dust floated through the sunlight, and cardboard boxes lined the walls beneath the slanted roof.
In the center of the room sat a single cedar chest.
My father’s initials were carved into the lid.
J.H.
Colleen touched the wood gently.
“He asked me to keep this.”
“When?”
“About six months before his stroke.”
I looked at her.
“He said if anything happened to him, I should give it to you.”
My chest tightened.
“Why me?”
She gave me a sad smile.
“Because you were the only one he trusted to do the right thing.”
She opened the chest.
Inside were notebooks.
Folders.
Bank statements.
Photographs.
A leather-bound journal.
And a small envelope with my name written across the front in my father’s uneven handwriting.
My hands trembled before I even touched it.
“I haven’t opened anything.”
Colleen said quietly.
“I promised him.”
I picked up the envelope.
The seal had yellowed with age.
Inside was a letter.
Lucy,
If you’re reading this, it means I waited too long to tell you the truth.
I stopped.
The words blurred for a moment.
I blinked hard and kept reading.
You have carried this family for years, and I let it happen because I believed keeping peace was the same thing as protecting you. I was wrong.
A tear landed on the paper.
Your mother has always loved Chelsea differently. I hoped she would change after Dany was born. She didn’t.
I closed my eyes.
He had seen it.
The birthdays where Carter received bicycles and Dany received socks.
The Christmas mornings where Carter opened gifts for an hour while Dany got one wrapped box.
The family photos where Dany somehow always ended up at the edge of the frame.
I had spent years wondering if I was imagining it.
My father had seen everything.
Colleen sat quietly beside me.
“He wrote in those journals almost every day after the stroke.”
I opened the first notebook.
The entries were short.
Uneven.
Written with a hand that had already begun to weaken.
March 14. Lucy drove me to therapy again. She missed work. Chelsea called once.
Another page.
April 2. Dany hugged me today and asked if I was getting better. He brought me a dandelion. Your mother forgot his birthday.
My throat closed.
Another page.
April 28. I tried to put Dany’s picture on the refrigerator. Helen moved it into the drawer.
I looked up sharply.
“The drawer.”
Colleen nodded slowly.
“You found it.”
I remembered standing in my mother’s kitchen three months earlier.
Looking for batteries.
Opening the junk drawer.
Finding a photograph of Dany smiling at the zoo.
Hidden behind an electricity bill.
When I asked Mom why it was there, she laughed.
“Oh, I was reorganizing.”
She had been lying.
I turned another page.
May 9. Lucy paid for my medication again. She thinks I don’t know. I know.
Another.
May 16. Helen says Carter should inherit the lake cabin because he carries on the family name. Dany is family too.
I stopped reading.
The attic suddenly felt too small.
“What cabin?”
Colleen looked surprised.
“You don’t know?”
I stared at her.
“Know what?”
“Your father owned half of the lake cabin.”
I frowned.
“No.”
She looked genuinely confused.
“He inherited it from Grandpa.”
I shook my head.
“He told me he sold it years ago.”
Colleen’s expression changed.
“No.”
She whispered.
“He never sold it.”
She stood and walked to another box.
Inside were property records.
Tax documents.
A deed.
My father’s name.
Still listed as co-owner.
“This can’t be right.”
I said.
“He told everyone it was gone.”
Colleen looked at me carefully.
“He didn’t tell everyone.”
She handed me another envelope.
It contained copies of checks.
Large checks.
Written from my father’s account.
The payee was my mother.
Memo line: Cabin taxes.
Year after year.
He had been paying for the property.
Secretly.
“Why would he hide this?”
Colleen hesitated.
“Because your mother wanted it for Chelsea.”
Silence settled between us.
I looked back at the journals.
One entry had been marked with a paper clip.
July 1. Helen says Lucy doesn’t need to know about the new will until after everything is settled.
I looked at Colleen.
“The new will?”
She closed her eyes briefly.
“There’s something else in the box.”
She reached beneath the journals and removed a blue folder.
It was empty.
A label remained on the front.
Estate Revision – Final Copy
Empty.
“Where is it?”
I asked.
“I don’t know.”
She looked frightened.
“It was here.”
I stared at the folder.
Someone had removed the will.
Recently.
My father had changed it.
And the only copy he trusted enough to hide had disappeared from the box he intended for me.
I turned back to the journal with shaking hands.
The next entry was dated only three weeks before his stroke.
If Helen finds the will before Lucy does, she’ll make sure Dany gets nothing.
I looked at Colleen.
She was crying silently.
“I think someone knew about this box.”
She whispered.
At that exact moment, footsteps creaked across the porch downstairs.
Colleen froze.
“No one should be here.”
We heard the front door open.
Then a woman’s voice calling through the house.
“Colleen?”
My mother.
May you like
She wasn’t supposed to know I was there.
And the attic door had no lock.
