Part 2 — When Grandpa Removed the Sheet, I Realized Why He Had Kept It Secret

My father looked at me for several seconds without saying a word.

Then he slowly reached for the sheet.

“Claire, please,” he said. “Before you judge me, let me show you.”

I tightened my arms around Emily.

“I don’t want you anywhere near her.”

Emily looked confused.

“But Mom, Grandpa didn’t do anything wrong.”

That sentence stopped me.

I looked at my father.

“What exactly have you been doing with her?”

He pulled the sheet away.

I froze.

Underneath it was a beautifully carved wooden figure.

It was a little girl.

And somehow, it looked exactly like Emily.

Her hair.

Her smile.

Even the tiny dimple on her cheek.

My father swallowed hard.

“I’ve been building this for her.”

Emily stepped forward.

“It’s my birthday present.”

I stared at the unfinished statue.

“You built this?”

My father nodded.

“For months.”

Then he pointed toward several old photographs scattered across the workbench.

They were photographs of me as a little girl.

I picked one up.

It showed me standing beside my mother in the same room.

My father looked embarrassed.

“Your mother and I started making things like this when you were young. After she died, I wanted to make something for Emily before I got too old.”

My anger began to weaken, but one question still bothered me.

“Then why did you lock this room?”

His expression changed.

“Because I didn’t want you to see it before it was finished.”

I looked at Emily.

“Then why did you tell her she had a nice figure?”

My father sighed.

“I was talking about the statue.”

He pointed toward the wooden figure.

“I was teaching Emily how to stand so I could carve the posture correctly. I used the wrong words, and I realize now how inappropriate they sounded.”

Emily suddenly whispered, “Grandpa told me Mom might misunderstand.”

My father nodded.

“I was afraid you would think something terrible.”

I felt tears burning my eyes.

But then I noticed something else.

A small wooden box sat beneath the workbench.

“What’s that?”

My father went completely silent.

He slowly picked it up.

“That,” he said, “is something your mother left for you.”

My heart stopped.

He opened the box.

Inside was an envelope with my name written across it in my mother’s handwriting.

I hadn’t seen that handwriting in years.

My father handed it to me.

“She told me to give you this when you became a mother.”

My hands trembled as I opened it.

There were only a few lines.

But the final sentence made my knees weak:

“Claire, if Emily ever asks to stay with her grandfather, let her. There is something in that house she needs to discover when she is old enough.”

I looked up at my father.

“What did Mom mean?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he looked toward the locked door at the end of the hallway.

Then he whispered,

“There’s one more room upstairs.”

And suddenly, I understood why my father had been so frightened when I first asked about that door.

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