What Lies Inside

“Can you keep a secret?” She stood beside her grandfather in his and her grandmother’s attic, past old broken toys and hidden behind old jackets and coats no one wore, sat a wooden chest in the corner of the room. By the amount of dust it was clear it had been there for decades, but she had never seen it before. She noticed it as she cleaned out the room with her grandfather, while her mother and father undertook the basement. She tried to move it to see if there were photos inside.

It had been a month since her grandmother passed. Her grandfather hadn’t been ready to go through his wife’s belongings, and the family had given him all the time he needed before they cleaned out the house and he moved in with her parents and her. The two had been married for thirty-five years when the doctors informed her she had cancer. That had been five years ago, and she had outlived their prognosis. It was a miracle in itself, and though the news of her death was devastating, everyone was grateful to have had five extra years with her.

Her grandfather signaled her to lower herself onto the chest, to get comfortable because it was about to be a long story. She did as he wanted; she had always been close to him. When she was a kid, he took her fishing and horseback riding. He was the person she went to whenever she needed an adventure. Her grandmother had been the cautious one, the one she shared secrets with. To think her grandparents had a secret fascinated her. She had believed she knew everything about them through the stories they told her from before she was born. She knew how her grandfather had broken his nose and an arm in an argument that turned violent when he was a teenager and how her grandmother had dated two boys at once with disastrous results when she was a teenager. What kind of secret could he possibly have?

He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. He sighed, in an exhausted way she had never seen him do before. It didn’t sit well with her. She had noticed in the past couple weeks he had seemed different. She had shrugged it off as him in mourning and missing his wife, but in that moment, she realized it was more than that. Something weighed on his mind and it had been for a while. He fidgeted and looked everywhere but in her eyes. Suddenly, she found herself on edge. “Should I get my mom?” There was a shift in the atmosphere and she wanted her mom with her, but her grandfather shook his head no. Her heart raced. “Okay.”

“I guess I should start at the beginning.” Her grandfather sighed once more and then launched into his story. How he and her grandmother had met when the two were twenty and had dated for five years before he proposed, which irked her grandmother, and were married for two years when her grandmother became pregnant. As he continued with his story, she counted the ages. The ages didn’t line up. Her grandparents married when they were twenty-five and if her grandmother had been pregnant two years later, then that would have made them twenty-seven. But in order for the ages to be correct, her grandmother would have had to be thirty when she had been pregnant, unless she had had a miscarriage or stillbirth. She asked her grandfather, to which he nodded and confirmed. “Yes, but that’s only part of the story. I haven’t gotten to the secret yet.”

She understood how, for some, that could be considered a family secret. It was a situation not everyone spoke of, although it was common. The tension she had felt before turned into confusion. If that was only part of the story, then what was the secret? “Your grandmother was devastated. She had wanted a baby and we had bought baby clothes, baby toys, everything the baby would need. After that, we moved all that up here, so we didn’t have to see it anymore. It had such an effect on her that she said she wasn’t sure she could go through that kind of pain again. That devastated me, but I understood it was worse for her. I let her be and hoped she changed her mind.” She nodded along and listened to her grandfather, though she still made little sense to her.

“It was a full year later when she decided she wanted to try again. She had been at the mall and passed by a toy store. It reminded her of when she was pregnant and had bought toys and clothes for our baby. So, she came home and announced she was ready and wanted to try again.” She watched as her grandfather grinned and his eyes sparkled from the memory. Still, the ages didn’t line up. “Unfortunately, we tried for months, until the doctor informed us it was impossible. It would be a miracle if it happened, which didn’t reassure either of us.

“Another year passed, and we had given up. What was the point? It was more and more heartbreak. We didn’t have it in us anymore.” He lowered his heart, some tears slipped out of his eyes and onto the wooden chest. He struggled to relive that time in his life. “So, we decided to adopt. It was our only real option, and we needed something that was a sure thing. We spoke to the adoption agency and about two weeks later, we received a phone call. There was a young woman who had just broken up with her boyfriend and unable to care for a baby. She said she wanted to give her baby a better life and thought we could do that.” She relaxed; the secret was that her mother was adopted. Her mother would be confused and perhaps a little hurt she had been in the dark for decades, but adoption wasn’t a terrible secret. “Your grandmother took the girl shopping and we had her over the house for dinner several times. When she gave birth we threw a party for her. It was a celebration. We had received the miracle the doctor had told us we needed.” He paused for a breath, and stared over at his granddaughter. “But…”

“Days later we received a phone call from the girl asking if she could come over. She wanted to see us and talk. I had reservations about it. I thought it was too soon for her to come over and see the baby, but your grandmother thought it would be good. For her to see what loving parents we were to the baby, to reassure her.” Confusing emotions masked her grandfather’s face and she leaned forward and held his hand in hers. She wasn’t sure what more there could be to the story, but she squeezed his hand and he continued. “Your grandmother should have never invited the girl over, and you’re the only person I’ll ever tell.

“The girl came over about an hour later. It started off fine. Your grandmother offered her a cup of coffee and asked how she was feeling, if she was in any pain, that kind of stuff. We sat in the kitchen and drank our coffee, but the girl acted strange. She was different from when we last saw her. It worried your grandmother and she asked her what was wrong. That was when she finally said what she was there for.” His words had come out too fast, as though he wanted to get the story out and be done with it once and for all. He had harbored a secret for decades and needed to unburden himself. “She and her boyfriend had reconciled and he asked about the baby. She told him she put the baby up for adoption and he was angry. He wanted them to be a family, so she was there to take the baby back.” Sorrow was in his eyes as he recalled that night. Her grip on her grandfather’s hand loosened and she leaned forward. Now she was intrigued. “So much happened, I couldn’t begin to tell you the sequence of events – just that, it ended in the girl storming up the stairs and into the nursery. Your grandmother ran up behind her and was screaming and crying. Names were thrown about. The two tussled for a few minutes at the top of the stairs. I was about to call 911 when it happened.” He shook his head, dropped her hand, and put it to his forehead. She sucked in her breathe, terrified of his next words. “Your grandmother had grabbed the baby out of her arms, and then pushed the girl down the stairs. She hit every step along the way and her head went through the wall.”

Her heart plummeted into her stomach. She wanted to react, but she was frozen in place. She wanted to scream, to cry, to run away from the man she had believed she knew, but she remained. She listened as her grandfather explained what proceeded. “Once that happened, what else could we do? Your grandmother put the baby in her crib as I lifted the girl and carried her into the kitchen. She was still alive, but her breathing was shallow. I didn’t know what to do. If she woke up, she would call the police and have us arrested. I had to do what was best for my family.” Sobs erupted. He could not control himself. His cries echoed and bounced off the walls. Her pupils enlarged as she connected the pieces.

“You killed her,” she stated, dumbfounded. She shielded her opened mouth with her hand as she thought about everything her grandfather had told her in the course of a half an hour. She thought of times before then, if there had ever been signs of what had happened. She had remembered times when her mother asked them for stories from her childhood and their uncharacteristic behavior, as though it was something neither had an answer for. But where did the chest come in at? The conversation had begun when she stumbled upon it. She shot off the chest, stared at her grandfather, and pointed to it. “What’s in there?” Without an answer, she bent down, slowly lifted the top, and peeked inside. Her heart raced as she did, unsure she wanted to know.

A scream escaped her mouth.

“Can you keep the secret?”