For fifty years, I feared becoming a widow. Only after his death, while sorting through his things, did I realise I had spent my life with a stranger.
“Mum, perhaps that’s enough for today? You smell of mothballs and the past.”
Emma wrinkled her nose as she stood in the doorway of her fathers bedroom. Eleanor Whitlock didnt turn around.
She was folding his shirts into a cardboard box, one by one, methodical as though performing a ritual. Collar to collar, sleeve to sleeve.
“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 now. And these thingstheyre just things.”
Eleanor froze, his favourite chunky-knit jumper in her hands. *Good. Quiet. Steady.* The words felt like three nails hammered into the coffin of their marriage. Fifty years of deafening, suffocating silence.
It wasnt his death she had feared. It was *this* emptiness afterward. The kind that now seemed to seep from the cracks of the old wardrobe along with the scent of dust, filling her lungs.
“Ill manage, Emma. Goyour husbands waiting. Dont let him dine alone.”
Her daughter sighed but didnt argue. Left. Eleanor remained, alone. With a sudden, unexpected ferocity, she yanked the wardrobe door, and it creaked open.
It needed moving, the floor behind it wiped. Leonard had been meticulous about cleanliness. Another of his quiet, peculiar habits.
She braced her shoulder against the heavy, stubborn wood. The wardrobe shifted unwillingly, scraping two deep grooves into the parquet.
And there, on the wall behind it, at eye level beneath the peeling edge of old wallpaper, was a thin, almost imperceptible line. Not a crack. Something else.
Eleanor ran a finger along it. The paper gave way, revealing the outline of a small door, flush with the wall, no handle. Her heart lurched, clumsy and painful.
Inside, pressed together as if keeping warm, lay several thick notebooks bound in buckram. Diaries.
Her hands trembled as she pulled out the first one. *Leonard? Diaries?* The man from whom shed had to pry even the simplest account of his day, only to receive the inevitable: *”Fine. Had supper?”*
She opened it at random. The familiar, slightly angular handwriting.
*14th March. Saw Mrs. Spencer from number three at the shop today. Crying againpension delayed, not enough for her medicine. Told Eleanor I was going for a walk, but slipped to the chemist instead and left a bag by her door. Told the pharmacist it was a surprise from an old friend. Eleanor mustnt know. Shed say we can barely make ends meet. Shes right, of course. But how could I not help?*
Eleanor gripped the page. March 14th. She remembered that day. Leonard had returned from his walk withdrawn, refused supper. Shed been cross, thinking hed retreated again into his impenetrable fortress.
Feverishly, she opened another.
*2nd May. The neighbours boy, Tommy, mixed up with the wrong crowd again. Crashed his motorbike. His father nearly killed him. Gave him money from the emergency fund last night. Said it was repayment for what his grandfather once did for me. Good lad, just foolish still. Eleanor wouldnt understand. She believes other peoples troubles arent ours. She guards our home. And I I cant live in a fortress while other houses crumble.*
The emergency fund. The one theyd saved for a new refrigerator. The one that had simply “vanished” one day.
Leonard had shrugged, said he must have misplaced it. And sheshe had almost believed hed drunk it away. Silently, for weeks, shed despised him for that imagined weakness.
Eleanor sat on the floor, surrounded by dust and secrets. The air felt thin. Every line in these diaries screamed of a man she had never known.
A man who had lived beside her, slept in the same bed, yet whose true life had unfolded in some parallel world, hidden behind the heavy curtain of his silence.
And now, sorting his things, she understood with terrible clarityshe had lived fifty years with a stranger.
She read until the words blurred. One hour, then two, then three. The room darkened, yet Eleanor remained on the floor, the notebooks spread around her like wreckage from another life.
Shame burned her cheeks. Hot, acrid. She remembered every reproach, every sigh about his “lack of ambition,” every evening shed scolded him for silence, never realising it wasnt emptybut full. Full of thoughts, feelings, deeds he had hidden from her like contraband.
*10th September. Eleanor spoke again today of how lively Margarets life is. And what am I? Work and home. She must find me dull. Shes like fire. Im water. Afraid to hiss and evaporate beside her. Easier to stay silent. Let her think Im content. So long as shes at peace.*
She hadnt been at peace. Shed raged at his calm. Mistaken his care for indifference.
The door opened again. Emma stood there, a grocery bag in hand.
“Mum, still sitting here? I brought you milk.”
She flicked the light on. The sudden glare revealed Eleanor, dishevelled on the floor, the diaries scattered around her.
“Good grief, whats all this rubbish? Now youre hoarding clutter?”
“Its not clutter. Its your fathers.”
Emma bent, picked up a notebook, skimmed a page. Her brows rose.
*”Notes on cultivating violets”?* Seriously? Dad and *violets*? Mum, come on. He hated flowers. Always grumbled when you brought another pot home.”
“He didnt grumble,” Eleanor said softly but firmly, looking up. “He didnt grumble at all.”
*12th April. Gave Eleanor a violet today. Said it was change from the shop. Really searched three markets for this varietyBlue Dragon. She was so pleased. When she smiles, Id buy every market stall for her. Just dont let her know how long I looked. Shed say Im being daft.*
“Oh, Mum, stop,” Emma waved it away, setting the notebook down. “Found a hobby in retirement, thats all. Youre reading too much into it.”
“It wasnt retirement. He wrote these all his life. About us. About *you*.”
Emma exhaled heavilythe sigh that meant *Mums at it again.*
“Mum, I know youre grieving. But dont rewrite him. Dad was a good, simple man. Not some secret poet or hero. He worked at the factory, watched telly, and kept quiet. Thats how we loved him. Why invent things now?”
The words struck like a slap. *Good. Simple. Kept quiet.* How cruelly wrong.
“You dont understand.”
“No, *you* dont!” Emmas voice rose. “Youre sitting in dust, reading old scribbles instead of facing facts. Stop turning him into someone he wasnt! Its not healthy!”
Eleanor stood slowly. Her knees ached, but she barely noticed.
She looked at her daughtergrown, so certainand saw herself. The self whod looked at Leonard for fifty years and seen nothing.
She said nothing. Just picked up the last, thinnest notebook. Opened it. And froze.
Because this one wasnt in his hand. Neat, almost calligraphic writinga womans. On the first page: *For my Lenny. Remembering our meetings.*
Emma fell silent mid-sentence, seeing her mothers face. She followed her gaze to the unfamiliar script.
“Whats *that*?” She reached for it. “Let me see.”
Eleanor pulled back sharply. The movement was almost hostile.
“Dont.”
“Here we go,” Emma muttered bitterly. “Secret admirers? Mum, I *told* you not to rummage. Now youll torment yourself.”
She sounded almost relieved. As if this proved her point: Father had been ordinary, with ordinary, perhaps even sordid secrets.
That, she could accept. Better than the saint her mother had begun crafting moments ago.
Eleanor wasnt listening. Her eyes were fixed on the first entry.
*20th January. Lenny brought me books today. Said theyd help distract me. Hes so attentive. Sees me, not my illness. The only one who still does. We talked of stars. He knows every constellation. Whod have thought?*
Illness? Stars? Eleanor remembered him trying to tell her of Orion and the Plough when they were young. Shed brushed him off, said her mind was on nappies, meals, life.
“Mum, toss it,” Emma insisted. “Youll only hurt yourself.”
Eleanor turned the page.
*5th February.
