After saying goodbye to my grandma, I went back to her house to collect the last of her things. My husband was impatient, practically PUSHING me to sell the place. “We …

“If you only knew what your husband was doing here… while your grandmother was still alive.”

Before I could ask a single question, she pressed a small brass key into my palm. The attic key.

“My grandmother gave this to you?” I asked.

“She made me promise to hand it to you personally.”

And just like that, the ground under my feet shifted again.

Paul was waiting in the car, tapping furiously on his phone. I told him to take the girls home. He wasn’t thrilled, but he left. I climbed the stairs alone, the key warm from my hand.

The attic door creaked open, the single bulb flickering to life, illuminating dust and forgotten relics. A row of old boxes. Stack of afghans. And in the corner, the brown leather suitcase I hadn’t seen since I was a child—the same one I’d pretended was filled with pirate treasure.

Inside the suitcase were photo albums, old bills, neatly labeled envelopes, and on top—a letter.

“For Mira.”

Her handwriting, shaky but unmistakable.

I opened it, heart thudding.

She wrote that Paul had been visiting her for months without telling me. Pressuring her. Insisting she sell the house. Claiming we needed the money badly, that I was fragile, that our marriage would break under financial strain.

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