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

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?”

“For years,” I said, my voice barely steady.

Because the dates were right there.

The letter I was holding was over 20 years old!

***

We went through the stack together. Some envelopes had stamps. Others had been returned, marked with old forwarding labels or crossed-out addresses.

Dolly had written back.

Not all the time, but enough to tell me this wasn’t a one-time thing.

This had been happening for decades!

“Dad was writing to her?”

***

I found one letter in Dolly’s handwriting.

Jane leaned closer.

“Mom… you don’t have to—”

I ignored her and opened it.

***

“Martin,

I don’t know why I’m writing back. I told myself I wouldn’t. But you keep writing as if I’m still part of something I walked away from. Tell her I’m fine. Or don’t. Maybe it’s better if she thinks I don’t care. But I do, more than I should. I just don’t know how to fix something that’s been broken this long.

—Dolly.”

I ignored her and opened it.

I pressed the letter to my chest.

All those years and that silence. She had been right there.

Writing back.

Missing me.

***