After My Wife’s Funeral, I Opened The Storage Door She’d Kept Me Out Of For 37 Years. Then My Son

Who was he?

I looked down at the journal again. There were more pages. So many more pages. I could see the edges of them filled with her handwriting, waiting to be read, waiting to tell me the truth.

But I did not want to read them.

Not yet.

I was not ready.

I picked up the small wooden box and held it in my hands. It was light. I shook it gently and heard something shift inside. Photographs, maybe. Or letters.

I thought about opening it, but I could not. Not right now. Not when my hands were still shaking and my mind was still reeling from that one name.

Brian.

I set the box back in the drawer and closed it carefully. Then I picked up the journal again and stared at the first page, at her words, at that name. I wanted to stop. I wanted to walk out of the shed and lock the door behind me and pretend I had never opened it.

But I knew I could not do that.

I knew I had to keep reading. I had to know the truth no matter how much it hurt.

I took a deep breath.

And then I turned the page.

The second page began with a date. Forty years ago. Long before we were married. Long before I ever met her.