As Emily withdrew it from the cardboard carton she’d been rooting through, the small key inserted in its metal clasp fell to the dusty floorboards with a soft plink, disappearing into the gloaming of an attic crammed to the rafters and lit only by the errant rays of sunlight that had managed to slip in under the eaves. The clasp gave easily when she pried at it with her thumbnail, the worn cover falling back with a creak of arthritic spine to reveal an entry penned in handwriting so neatly rounded and girlish, it was a moment before she recognized it as their mother’s. She idly remarked to her sister, “I didn’t know Mom kept a diary.” “A diary? Hmmm,” Sarah murmured distractedly. She was kneeling on the floor beside Emily, her rear end resting on her sneakered heels, absorbed in sorting through another carton filled with odds and ends. “God, can you believe all this stuff? She must’ve saved every single card and letter, not to mention all our school report cards.” She plucked one from a crumpled manila envelope marked “Sarah.” “Oh, Lord. There’s that D-plus I got in Mr. Grimaldi’s class. All As and Bs except that one stupid D. Remember how mad Mom was? Not at me but at my teacher. She marched straight down there and told him that if a smart girl like me had practically flunked his class, it was because he didn’t know how to teach. I was so embarrassed!” She smiled at the memory, eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “How could I forget?” It hadn’t been just that one incident. Their mother had been a tigress when it came to her children, questioning and sometimes berating anyone who dared criticize them when she viewed the criticism as unjust; making sure they got the best education; gently nudging Emily, the shier of the two, into the forefront whenever she appeared in danger of being overshadowed by her more outgoing sister. For Elizabeth, husband and children had always come first. “I wonder if the old man ever recovered,” said Sarah, chuckling softly as she shook her head. Emily’s attention was drawn back to the diary, which had fallen open to about the midway point. She struggled to make out their mother’s neat schoolgirl’s handwriting in the dim light. Her pulse quickened as a passage jumped out at her. She called urgently to her sister, “Sarah, come quick. You have to see this!” Sarah crab-walked over to have a look, pushing a scrap of blond hair behind one ear as she leaned to peer over Emily’s shoulder. After a moment, she exclaimed softly, “Wow. Looks like this diary wasn’t the only secret she kept.” She looked up at her sister, her eyes wide and her normally animated face slack with puzzlement. “What do you make of it?” Sarah was the rounder of the two, anchored to the earth in a way that made her seem sensible and dependable, which she was. Emily, the more excitable one, was built like a rocket poised for lift-off. Sarah had their father’s fair hair and blue eyes, while Emily favored their mother: tall and slim-hipped, with dark hair that grew to a widow’s peak on her forehead like the point on one of the heart-shaped construction-paper cutouts she’d been unearthing from cardboard cartons all day—various Valentine’s Day projects made by her and her sister through the years. Emily shook her head, equally bewildered. Then a new, troubling thought occurred to her. “Do you think Dad knew?” Their father had passed away the year before. His ashes were in an urn on the fireplace mantel downstairs, where their mother had been keeping them while purportedly trying to decide where they ought to be scattered. “Maybe it was before they were a couple,” said Sarah. “No. Look at the date.” Emily flipped back to the first entry, where the date was clearly marked: July 3, 1951. “The year she married Dad.” Sarah’s voice emerged as a cracked whisper. Their mother had been twenty-one when she and Bob Marshall had wed in December of 1951, just before he’d shipped out to Korea. Sarah had been born five years later, Emily three years after that. Emily, seated cross-legged on the floor, stared sightlessly at the jumbled pile she’d unearthed from her box: an old clock missing one of its hands, a manila envelope stuffed full of yellowing receipts, back issues of magazines, tattered paperbacks, a JFK campaign button, and an old sombrero with a hole in its brim—a souvenir from a family trip to Acapulco. “You know how she was always telling us Dad was the only man she ever loved?” she mused aloud before bringing her head sharply round to face Sarah. “Do you think that’s just what she wanted us to believe?” The two sisters sat in silence for a moment.
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