Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Mara
There are a few things I hate in life, and unpacking ranks right up there with tax season, humidity, and my own questionable decision-making skills.
But unpacking things that don’t even belong to me? That’s torture with a bow on top.
I should leave it for another day—maybe another decade. Honestly, who did I offend in a past life? Did I steal candy from a saint? Run over a nun? Because whatever karma I’m paying off, it’s staring at me in the form of boxes that feel less like cardboard and more like emotional landmines.
I should just leave them. Seal them. Pretend they don’t exist.
Is there a legal way to start a controlled fire inside a penthouse? Because I could absolutely burn the whole stack, tell the lawyer it was a tragic electrical incident, and claim I did my absolute best to complete whatever apparently sacred homework Aunt Lina assigned me from beyond the grave.
Go through the boxes, Mara. They’re the key to leaving before the year-mark.
Sure. Because nothing says “closure” like digging through someone else’s memories while trying not to fall apart in front of my eight-year-old.
As if a few boxes will magically explain why my aunt picked me of all people to inherit her life and whatever else she wants me to learn.
A key, the lawyer said. I don’t want a damn key.
Give my family everything and let me fade into the background with dignity and minimal paperwork.
I don’t want any of this lavish stuff. I don’t want responsibility wrapped in cardboard.
And I especially don’t want nostalgia bleeding through packing tape like some poetic punishment.
No.
At least I’ll do this alone. Mila is finally asleep in her room. She insisted she wanted to help me unpack, and I pulled out the old allergy excuse.
“Dust mites are not your friends. You hate allergy medicine.”
She hates how drowsy it makes her, and shockingly—I won the argument. Look at me. Parenting like a functional adult . . . maybe.
I drag one of the smaller boxes onto the bed.
The first is harmless: clothes wrapped in tissue, a crocheted baby blanket that smells faintly like jasmine and time. I fold it with more care than anyone asked for, narrating the inventory to myself like I’m curating a museum exhibit titled Procrastination in Motion.
The second box is labeled Miscellaneous.
Which is universal code for:
I panicked and shoved everything inside one box.
I stare at it for a moment, then pry the tape open because maybe—just maybe—this is the box that gets to join the trash bags I brought with me.
Inside, I find more fabric. Two photo albums filled with baby pictures of me—some I’ve never seen. Three stacks of old bills rubber-banded together. A wallet. A small wooden frame with a faded picture of a teenage boy whose smile looks both hopeful and unsure. He reminds me slightly of Mila.
And then, at the very bottom—wedged under a couple of journals—I see it.
A shoebox.
Beat-up. Yellowed. The cardboard is soft along the edges like it’s been handled too many times.
I pull it out carefully, the way you lift something fragile that might crumble if you’re too confident. The lid gives way with a quiet release, and inside I find letters bound together with a thin piece of twine knotted so tightly it looks like it’s been holding its breath for years.
I sit cross-legged on the bed with the shoebox in my lap.
My fingers tremble a little as I loosen the knot. The twine snaps easily, and the letters shift, like they’re stretching after a lifetime of being held in place.
I pick up the first envelope, holding it as gently as if it has a pulse. The paper is thin, softened by time, almost translucent along the folds. The handwriting leans and loops in an eager, youthful way—full of hope I don’t think I’ve held in years.
I inhale.
And I start reading.
August 14, 1967
My dearest Thomas,
You left yesterday, and everything feels wrong.
The house is too quiet. The road is too still.
I keep listening for your truck, hoping I’ll hear the gravel shift or that ridiculous whistling you do when you’re nervous someone will catch us together.
I never told you how terrible it sounds, mostly because it made me feel like I was yours in a way nothing else ever has.
Laura says I’m being dramatic. She doesn’t understand what it means to feel so much at once—how pride can sit right next to fear, how love can grow even when your heart feels like it’s too full to hold another ounce.
You told me not to be scared, but I am. You’re eighteen, and they’re sending you so far from home it hurts to think about it.
Do you promise you’ll write? You say yes too easily when you’re trying to reassure me. Say it again on paper. Let me keep the promise in my hands when I miss you. I know I will. I already do.
I prayed last night. And again this morning. And again just now before I sat down to write this. I don’t know if it does anything at all, but I don’t know what else to do except ask the universe to bring you back to me.
Please come home safe.
I’m not finished loving you yet.
Yours, always,
Lina
I blink hard.
Thomas?
Who the hell is Thomas?
My eyes skim the letter again, as if the name might rearrange itself into something familiar, something that belonged to the Lina I knew. But it doesn’t. It stays right there, bold and young and full of a love story I’ve never heard.
Why have I never heard his name?
Why did she keep letters from 1967 hidden away in a shoebox?
Why didn’t she tell anyone?
My chest goes tight—not the painful way, but the way it does when a truth brushes up against you, and you’re not ready for it.
This . . . this feels like stepping into a version of her life I didn’t even know existed.
A life she sealed away on purpose. A life she protected from everyone, including me.
I sit there, staring at the paper, the ink faded but still breathing with her. Younger her. Hopeful her. The her I probably never met.
A part of me wants to fold the letter back up, tie the twine tight again, and pretend I didn’t see any of this. Pretend her past isn’t sitting in my lap, demanding to be acknowledged.
I should call Mom, Aunt Lisa . . . or Ari. Anyone who can talk me down before I fall too deep into someone else’s history.
Because these letters—they don’t look like a key. They’re more like a door.
A door she meant for someone to open.
A door I’m suddenly terrified to walk through.