After 65 Years of Marriage, I Opened My Husband’s Locked Drawer – Inside, I Found a Stack of Letters, and My Knees Buckled When I Saw Who They Were Addressed To

“This drawer. It’s locked.”

Had it always been like that?

Or had he done it recently?

And why?

Honestly, I’d never noticed it before.

I rolled into our bedroom and looked for the key in the one place it could be: Martin’s favorite jacket. It was hanging in the closet, right where he’d left it.

I reached into the pocket and pulled out the keys.

I went back to the desk.

I’d never noticed it before.

Jane had followed quietly behind me, watching.

“You don’t have to open it right now.”

But I did. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew that whatever was inside that drawer mattered, although the lock gave me a bad feeling.

I slid the key in with trembling hands. Then I turned it.

The lock clicked.

Inside the drawer was a stack of neatly tied letters, dozens of them, maybe more.

That feeling about the lock was right.

“You don’t have to open it right now.”

My heart pounded against my ribs.

My first thought didn’t even make sense.

Who writes letters anymore?

My second thought made me blink a couple of times.

Who had my husband been writing to?

Then I picked one up and turned the envelope over.

And that’s when everything inside me dropped.

The name written there, I hadn’t seen it in over 50 years!

Dolly!

My heart pounded against my ribs.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe.

Dolly was my younger sister, the one I hadn’t spoken to since forever.

And now her name was sitting in my hands, in Martin’s handwriting.

“Mom?” Jane said softly behind me.

I didn’t answer because nothing about this made sense.

Martin and Dolly together?

No. That wasn’t possible.

He would have told me. My husband told me everything.

Didn’t he?

Her name was sitting in my hands.

My vision started to blur, but I needed to know what Martin had been hiding from me.

I slid my finger under the envelope and opened the first letter I’d grabbed. I unfolded it slowly.

My hands were shaking now.

I looked down at the first line, and the moment I read it, the air left my lungs.

“She still talks about you in her sleep.”

I don’t remember dropping the letter. But now it was on the floor.

I unfolded it slowly.

Jane was beside me now. “Mom… what is it?”

She picked up the envelope and read the name. Her eyes widened. “Aunt Dolly?”

I nodded, but my focus was still on the letter on the floor. Jane bent to pick it up and gave it back to me.

I forced myself to keep reading.

“She still talks about you in her sleep. Sometimes it’s your name. Sometimes it’s just laughter I haven’t heard in years. I don’t think she knows she’s doing it. I thought you should know.

—Martin.”

“Mom… what is it?”

Jane sat slowly in Martin’s chair. “Dad was writing to her?”