I Married My Husband in the House He Shared with His Late Wife – but on Our Wedding Night, I Found a Letter Taped Inside My Nightstand

Shards of broken glass lay on the floor in front of the sink.

I finished the task as fast as possible and hurried back to the bedroom. I had to know what secrets Matthew was hiding from me!

I stopped dead in the doorway. The nightstand drawer was closed.

Did I leave it that way? I could’ve sworn I’d left it open…

I walked over slowly and pulled the drawer out.

The letter was gone.

The letter was gone.

My stomach dropped.

“Someone took it… Someone knew,” I whispered.

And my gut screamed at me: Matthew knew.

He must’ve come into the bedroom while I was cleaning up the broken glass and seen the open drawer. He looked inside, found the letter, and took it.

He must’ve found the letter.

Breakfast the following morning was tense and quiet. Matthew picked at his eggs. His eyes were swollen, as if he hadn’t slept a wink, the way mine probably looked, too.

“You okay, Matt?”

He gave me a forced smile. “Just… long night. I’ll be fine.”

Mia felt the tension, too. She played with her cereal, eating nothing, and kept her gaze down.

Mia felt the tension, too.

When Matthew kissed me goodbye before work, his lips barely grazed my cheek. I watched him walk down the path, and I knew he must’ve taken the letter. Why else would he be acting so strangely?

Overnight, my beautiful, gentle Matthew had become a stranger. I needed to figure out my next steps.

Should I confront him? How could I trust anything he said when he’d been hiding the truth all this time?

A small sound behind me broke the quiet.

Why else would he be acting so strangely?

Mia was drawing at the kitchen table.

I walked over. “Hey, sweetheart… whatcha drawing?”

She froze for a second, then pushed the paper toward me without looking up. The picture was simple — Mommy lying down on a bed with a big rectangle clutched in her hand. Next to her stood a tiny stick-figure Mia with a dark X scribbled over her mouth.

It sent a chill down my spine.

Mia was drawing

at the kitchen table.

I crouched beside her. “Honey… what’s Mommy holding here?”

Mia didn’t answer.

I pointed to the X over her stick-figure mouth. “What about this? Does this little girl have something she can’t say?”

“It’s a secret.”

Mia didn’t answer.

My chest tightened.

“It looks like this secret makes her sad… did you know that a secret that makes you feel bad isn’t a secret you should have to keep? Not ever.”

Mia looked at me with tears in her eyes. “But Daddy said not to tell. He said it makes his heart hurt. But… it makes mine hurt too.”

Oh, God. Mia knew… Whatever Matthew was hiding from me, Mia knew what it was.