**Diary Entry 3rd November**
For fifty years, I had been terrified of becoming a widow. Only now, after his death, while sorting through his belongings, have I realised I spent my life married to a stranger.
“Mum, perhaps thats enough for today? You smell of mothballs and the past.”
Eleanor wrinkled her nose as she stood in the doorway of her fathers bedroom. Margaret Townsend didnt turn around. She was folding his shirts into a cardboard box with slow, deliberate movements, one after another, collar to collar.
“I just want to finish this wardrobe.”
“Youve been finishing it for a week. He was a good man, Mum. Quiet, decent, steady. But hes gone. These things are just things.”
Margaret froze, his favourite cable-knit jumper in her hands. *Good. Quiet. Steady.* Those words drove three nails into the coffin of their marriagefifty years of deafening, suffocating silence.
It wasnt his death she had feared. It was this emptiness after. The kind that seeped from the cracks of the old wardrobe now, filling her lungs like dust.
“Ill manage, Ellie. Go, your husbands waiting. Dont let him eat alone.”
Her daughter sighed but didnt argue. She left. Margaret was alone. With a sudden violence that startled even herself, she yanked the wardrobe door, and it creaked open.
She needed to move it, to clean behind it. Leonard had always been particular about cleanlinessanother one of his quiet, precise little habits.
She braced her shoulder against the heavy oak. The wardrobe shifted reluctantly, scraping deep furrows into the floorboards.
And there, on the wall behind it, just above eye level, beneath the peeling edge of faded wallpaper, was a thin, almost invisible line. Not a crack. Something else.
Her finger traced it. The paper gave way, revealing a small recessed door with no handle. Her heart lurched.
Inside, pressed together as if keeping warm, lay several thick notebooks bound in cloth. Diaries.
Her hands shook as she pulled out the first one. Leonard? Diaries? The man who answered questions about his day with nothing more than, “Fine. Had supper?”
She opened it at random. His familiar, slightly angular handwriting.
*”14th March. Met Mrs. Howard from number three at the shop today. Crying againpension late, cant afford her medicine. Told Margaret I was going for a walk, then slipped to the chemist and left a bag at her door. Told the pharmacist it was a surprise from an old friend. Mustnt let Margaret find out. Shed say we can barely manage ourselves. Shes right, of course. But how could I not help?”*
Margaret clutched the page. She remembered that day. Leonard had returned from his walk distant, refusing supper. Shed been hurt, thinking hed retreated again into his fortress of silence.
Frantically, she opened another.
*”2nd May. The neighbours boy, Tommy, got mixed up with the wrong crowd again. Crashed his motorcycle. His father nearly killed him. Gave him the money from our savings last night. Told him it was repayment for what his grandfather did for mine. Good lad, just foolish. Margaret wouldnt understand. She thinks other peoples troubles are none of our concern. She keeps our home safe. And I I cant live in a fortress while other houses crumble.”*
*Their* savings. The ones theyd set aside for a new fridge. The money that had mysteriously “disappeared.”
Leonard had shrugged, said he mustve misplaced it. And sheshe had almost believed hed drunk it away. For weeks, she had despised him for an imagined weakness.
She sat on the floor, surrounded by dust and secrets she was never meant to know. The air felt thin. Each line screamed of a man she had never truly knownwho had slept beside her, shared her life, while his real one unfolded in some parallel world, hidden behind silence.
And in that moment, sorting through his things, she understood with painful clarity: for fifty years, she had lived with a stranger.
She read until the words blurred. Hours passed. The room darkened. Still, she sat hunched on the floor, the notebooks spread around her like wreckage from another life.
Shame burned her cheeks. She remembered every complaint, every sigh about his “passivity,” every evening she had scolded him for silencenever realising it wasnt empty, but full. Full of thoughts, feelings, actions he had smuggled away from her like contraband.
*”10th September. Margaret mentioned again how lively Susans life is. And what am I? Work and home. She must find me dull. Shes fire. Im water. Afraid to hiss and vanish beside her. Easier to stay quiet. Let her think Im content. So long as she is.”*
She had never been content. She had resented his quiet. Mistaken his care for indifference.
The door opened. Eleanor stood there with a grocery bag.
“Mum, youre still sitting here? I brought you milk.”
She flicked on the light. The sudden brightness exposed Margaretdishevelled, surrounded by the scattered diaries.
“Good Lord, whats all this rubbish? Now youre collecting junk?”
“Its not junk. Its your fathers.”
Eleanor picked one up, skimmed a page. Her eyebrows rose.
*”Notes on cultivating violets”? Seriously? Dad and gardening? Mum, come on. He hated flowers. Always grumbled when you brought another pot home.*
“He didnt grumble,” Margaret said softly, looking up. “He pretended.”
*”12th April. Gave Margaret a violet today. Said it was change from the shop. Really spent three days hunting for that exact variety’Blue Dragon.’ She was so pleased. When she smiles, Id buy every market stall for her. Just as long as she never guesses how long I searched. Shed say its foolish.”*
“Oh, Mum, stop,” Eleanor sighed, setting the diary down. “Just some scribbles to pass the time. Come on, dinners ready.”
“He didnt write this in retirement. He wrote it *always.* About us. About you.”
Eleanor exhaledthe kind of sigh that meant, *Mums being dramatic again.*
“Mum, I know youre grieving. But dont rewrite him. Dad was a good, simple man. Not some secret poet. He worked at the factory, watched telly, and stayed quiet. Thats how we loved him. Why invent things now?”
The words stung. *Good. Simple. Quiet.* It was so unjust. So horribly wrong.
“You dont understand.”
“No, *you* dont!” Eleanors voice sharpened. “Youre sitting in dust reading old scribbles instead of facing the truth. Stop turning him into someone he wasnt! Its not healthy!”
Margaret stood slowly, knees stiff. She looked at her daughterso certain, so sure of herselfand saw with horror the woman *she* had been. The one who had lived with Leonard for fifty years without ever *seeing* him.
She said nothing. Just picked up the last, thinnest notebook. Opened it. And froze.
Because these pages werent in his hand. The neat, almost delicate script belonged to a woman. The first page read: *”For my Len. Remembering our talks.”*
Eleanors words died when she saw her mothers face. She followed her gaze to the unfamiliar writing.
“Whats *this* now?” She reached for it. “Let me see.”
Margaret pulled away sharply.
“Dont touch.”
“Here we go,” Eleanor muttered bitterly. “Secret admirers? Mum, I *told* you not to go through his things. Now youll torment yourself.”
She almost sounded relieved. As if proof of an ordinary, flawed man was better than the saint Margaret had begun constructing moments ago.
Margaret wasnt listening. Her eyes locked onto the first entry.
*”20th January. Len brought me books today. Said theyd help take my mind off things. Hes so kind. Sees me, not my illness. The only one who still does. We spoke about the stars. He knows every constellation. Whod have thought?”*
*Illness? Stars?* Margaret remembered him trying to point out Orion when they were young. Shed brushed him off, said she had no time for such things. Nappies, bills, *life* had mattered more.
“Mum, throw it away,” Eleanor pressed. “Youre hurting yourself.”
Margaret turned the page.
*”5th February. He came after work, exhausted. Talked about his Margaret. He loves her so. Says shes his fortress, his ground. And hes just a quiet satellite, orbiting her. Afraid to disappoint her, to seem weak or impractical. So he brings his dreams to me. And I listen. Im not afraid. Ive nothing left to fear.”*
This wasnt a lovers journal
