When my father passed away, the only thing he left me was a locked old toolbox. A few days later, my stepmother showed up and tried to hand me five thousand dollars if I agreed to throw it out. Why would she pay that much to get rid of something she insisted had no value? I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was terrified of whatever was hidden inside.
A few days after the funeral, April appeared at my door wearing the kind of smile she always used when she wanted something.
My mother died when I was two. April came into my life when I was ten, and even though she did everything she was supposed to do, the two of us never really formed a close bond.
“Marla, sweetheart,” she said as she stepped inside without waiting for me to say she could. Her eyes immediately landed on the old blue toolbox sitting near my front door.
My dad had left it to me in his will, and I still couldn’t figure out the reason.
“That rusty thing is going to make a mess on your carpet,” she said. “You should just get rid of it. I’ll even give you five thousand dollars to toss it out.”
Five thousand dollars for a battered old toolbox made every instinct I had fire at once.
“Why would you do that?”
She lifted one shoulder. “I feel bad that all you got was that old thing. And you’re not going to use it anyway.”
“But Dad must have had a reason for leaving it to me.”
“Come by tomorrow and pick out something else to keep as a memory,” she said, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a thick envelope and held it toward me. “You can take the money now if you agree to get rid of it.”
I’m not a genius, but even I could see how strange her behavior was. She was far too eager for me to get that toolbox out of my life, and I had no idea why.
It was just a toolbox. Unless there was something inside she desperately didn’t want me to see.
“Thanks, April, but I think I’ll keep it,” I said, smiling politely.
Her own smile vanished. For a moment she looked honestly afraid, then her usual expression snapped back into place.
“Suit yourself,” she said, sliding the envelope back into her purse. “It’s not like you even have the key.”
“I was going to ask about that. Dad’s lawyer thought you might know where it was.”
“He lost it years ago,” she said quickly.
That quick response, paired with her uneasy expression, told me she was lying.
But what on earth was she hiding?
The next day I tried every method I could think of to break that lock. I tried bolt cutters. I tried hitting it with a hammer. I even tried picking it with a bobby pin the way people do in movies. Not one thing worked.
I ended up sitting on my living room floor, staring at the stubborn lock. I knew April wasn’t telling the truth. And I also knew exactly where she kept anything important. She always stored her valuables in her jewelry box.
If I wanted the key, I’d have to go get it myself. I took a breath and called her.
“Hi, April. I’ve been thinking about your offer. I might be open to it. Could I come by and look through Dad’s things to see what I want to keep instead?”
“Of course. Come over this afternoon. We can have tea.”
“That sounds good. I’ll see you then.”
That afternoon I sat at her table sipping tea while pretending to go through a box of Dad’s belongings.
“Here are the cufflinks he inherited from his father,” she said, lifting them out. “And here’s the watch he got when he retired.”
I made the right noises while she continued presenting item after item, but my mind was fixed on her jewelry box.
“Excuse me,” I said after drinking half my tea. “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Go ahead, honey. You know where it is.”
I walked down the hall but slipped quietly into her bedroom instead. My mouth felt dry as I tugged open the dresser drawer. The jewelry box was right where it always had been.
Inside, nestled among her trinkets, was a key with the same brand name as the padlock on the toolbox. That was it.
I slid it into my pocket and hurried back to the living room. She had spread out even more of Dad’s belongings while I was gone.
I pretended to examine everything, picked up a tie, then set it down with a sigh.
“This is a big choice. I need to think about it.”
“No rush,” she said gently.
I finished my tea, thanked her, and went home. The moment I closed my front door, I pulled out the stolen key, slid it into the lock, and felt it turn. The padlock opened easily.
I lifted the lid of the toolbox and blinked. It was full of ordinary tools. Screwdrivers, a flashlight, hex keys. Nothing unusual. Nothing worth thousands of dollars.
“This can’t be it,” I said out loud.
I lifted out the tray inside and found wrenches in the next layer. I dug under them and discovered a flat object wrapped in thick plastic. My pulse jumped. That had to be what April didn’t want me to find.
Inside the wrapping was an envelope stuffed with papers. They were divorce papers between my father and my biological mother, Susannah. The same woman my father had told me died when I was two.
I read the documents over and over until the truth finally hit me. My mom had not died. My father had lied. And April had known the whole time.
The reason listed for the divorce made me sick. “Irreconcilable differences caused by instability and unsafe behavior.”
My father must have wanted me to know all of this after he was gone. But I still didn’t understand what it all meant.
The only person left who might have answers was April.
I drove straight back to her house without calling first. When she opened the door, I held up the stolen key.
She went pale. “You opened it.”
“And I found the divorce papers. Dad lied to me for my entire life. And you knew.”
For the first time in all the years I’d known her, she actually looked shaken.
“He made me promise not to tell you. He thought it was better for you. Your mother wasn’t stable, Marla. You weren’t safe around her.”
“Why? What happened?”
She tightened her jaw. “After you were born she started losing touch with reality. Your father said sometimes she insisted you weren’t real.”
“Was it postpartum psychosis?”
“I don’t know what it was called,” she said. “Your father tried to get her help. She’d take medication for a while, then stop, and the whole thing would start again. By the time you were two she was vanishing for days. He had her admitted to a mental health facility, but she ran away. That’s when he filed for divorce.”
So my mother had been alive all along. And I had grown up believing she was gone.
“What happened to her after that?” I asked.
“No idea,” she snapped. “And why does it matter? I’ve been more of a mother to you than she ever was. This is exactly why I didn’t want you opening that toolbox. I knew you would start digging.”
“So it wasn’t only about honoring Dad’s promise,” I said quietly. “You didn’t want me looking for her.”
April pressed her lips together. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.
“I guess that tells me everything,” I said, turning to leave.
“Don’t do this, Marla,” she called after me. “That woman—”
“She is still my mother,” I said. “And I deserve to know what happened to her.”
It took me three long days of digging through online archives and old records before I found her.
My mother had died the year before.
It felt like my chest collapsed. I had spent my entire life believing lies, and by the time I learned the truth, she was already gone. There would be no reunion, no conversation, no closure. I would never know whether she had ever healed.
But I could still visit her grave.
—
I wandered the cemetery for twenty minutes before I found the headstone. It was simple. Only her name and the dates marking her life, a life I knew almost nothing about.
Someone had left daisies that had dried and turned brittle. I moved them aside gently and placed the white roses I brought.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I wish I had known you. I should have had that chance.”
Tears came hard. I cried for the mother I never got to meet, for the years we both lost, and for the truth that had been withheld from me. I cried until my throat burned and my eyes hurt. I only stopped because I heard footsteps behind me.
I turned and saw an older woman approaching. When she got close enough to see my face, her hand flew to her chest.
“Marla?” she breathed. “It has to be you. You look so much like Susannah.”
My heart froze. “You knew my mother?”
She nodded sadly. “She was my sister. Oh, sweetheart, I can’t believe I’m seeing you. After everything that happened… I never thought this moment would come.”
My mother had a sister. That meant I had an aunt, someone my father had erased from my life without me ever knowing.
“He told me she died when I was two. I just learned the truth.”
“Oh, honey. If I had known where you were, I would have tried to reach you. But he cut all ties with us after the divorce.”
“Did she ever get better? Did she think about me?”
“I won’t sugarcoat it,” she said gently. “Your mom struggled her whole life. But she had good days too.”
She smiled softly. “And when she was clear, she missed you with her whole heart. She loved you deeply.”
I broke down again. She handed me a tissue.
“My name is Tanya,” she said. “Come on. Let’s get a coffee. We have years to talk about.”
I had lost the chance to know my mother, but I wasn’t completely alone. I had a family connection I never knew existed. I had pieces of my story I’d never imagined. And for the first time in my life, I had a path toward the truth.