Found the typical attic stuff, Christmas decorations, boxes marked recollections that were genuinely hoarded trash, a mannequin that terrified her for a good minute.
Inside: correspondence. Dozens among them. All written to her grandmother, all from someone named Richard, all dated 1967. Love letters. Desperate ones. The kind that made it plain her grandpa wasn't the first choice. Not even the second was.
No concealed corpses, no stolen fortunes, the attic secret was not spectacular. Only proof that her grandmother had once been somebody different. Someone who loved fiercely and was loved back then opted otherwise. Pick pragmatic. Never said it.
But now as she glances at her stoic, grounded, never frivolous grandmother, she sees Richard's letters. Looks the attic. Sees all the lives not lived tucked away where no one is meant to look. Every attic conceals mysteries. Every secret has a motive for its attic existence.
