He died in June, heat thick as soup, no next of kin except me. The will was baffling. We barely spoke after I turned twenty. Still, he left me the house and everything in it.

It sits on the edge of Montclair like it’s bracing for a fight—shingles peeling, mailbox dangling by one screw. Inside smelled like cedar and menthol. Every room was dusty but untouched… except for the master bedroom. That door? Nailed shut with five thick iron nails.

From the inside.

I called a locksmith. He laughed, thought it was some old man paranoia. He pried the thing open and muttered, “Well, that’s a first.” The room looked like time stopped in 1993. Same yellowing sheets, same rotary phone. On the bed: a typewriter. No paper. Just a single Polaroid stuck between the keys.

It was a photo of my mother.

She was maybe twenty-three, standing in that exact bedroom. Same floral curtains. Same bedspread. But she’s staring at the camera like someone just slapped her. Eyes wide. One hand up, like she was trying to block something. Or someone.

I texted her a picture of it. No reply. Then I called. Straight to voicemail. Five hours later, I got one message:

“Do not stay in that house overnight.”

But it was already dark. I’d just turned on the hallway light when I heard—

A thud.

It came from the bedroom. Or maybe the hallway closet. I froze, phone still in hand. Another sound—this time a creak. Floorboards shifting, like someone had stepped on them. But I was alone.

At least, I thought I was.

I forced myself to move. Told myself it was the house settling. Old beams, old walls. Maybe a raccoon. I’d read about those getting into attics. But still, I couldn’t shake the cold knot forming in my stomach.

I opened the closet. Empty. Just an old coat and a broken umbrella. No signs of an animal. No draft. But when I closed it, something caught my eye again in the bedroom.

The Polaroid was gone.

I didn’t hear anyone come in or out. And the windows were all shut, latched from the inside. I stood there, staring at the empty space on the typewriter. My heart thudding.

Then my phone buzzed. A second text from my mom:
“Leave now. Do not touch anything else.”

I tried calling again. Straight to voicemail. At that point, I wasn’t scared—I was angry. She’d never mentioned anything about this house growing up. Said my uncle was “off,” but never said why. Never explained why we stopped visiting him after my eighth birthday.

I packed up my bag, ready to sleep in my car. But as I turned toward the hallway, I noticed something I hadn’t before.

There was another door. Half-hidden behind a tall, dusty dresser. It looked like a closet, but there was a key hanging from a nail beside it. An old brass skeleton key, like something out of a museum.

Against my better judgment, I tried it.

The door opened into a narrow staircase, leading down. It wasn’t listed on the house plans the lawyer sent me. A hidden basement, maybe? But it didn’t feel like that. The stairs were carpeted. Wallpapered walls, like it was a part of the living space.

I should’ve left then.

But curiosity wins. Every time.

I walked down slowly, my phone flashlight flickering. The air got cooler with each step. At the bottom was a small room. A couch, a table, a mini fridge. And another wall of shelves lined with VHS tapes. Each labeled with a date. Some from the ’80s, most from the early ’90s.

One name repeated on almost every label: “Mireya.”

My mother’s name.

I stood there, hand hovering over one of the tapes. Everything felt wrong. The kind of wrong you don’t feel in your head—it hits you in your ribs. Deep.

I grabbed one marked April 2, 1992. Took it upstairs to the old TV in the living room. There was a VCR already hooked up, dusty but functional.

The tape began with static. Then color bars. Then my uncle’s voice.

“Entry seventeen. Mireya doesn’t know I’m recording. She said she’s going to tell your father today.”

I dropped the remote. The camera panned slowly to a shot of my mother, seated at the kitchen table. Crying. Head in her hands.

I couldn’t watch more. I hit eject. My hands were shaking. The whole thing—this house, that room, those tapes—it was some kind of archive. But of what?

I left the tape on the floor and sat on the couch. Tried to collect myself. That’s when I saw a box tucked under the coffee table. It was labeled “To be destroyed.” Inside were letters. Dozens of them. All addressed to my father. None opened.

The top one was dated 1994.

“Mateo—he knows. I think he’s watching the house again. I shouldn’t have come back, but I needed to see you. I’m sorry. If anything happens to me, check the box behind the furnace.”

It was my mother’s handwriting.

I don’t remember standing up. Just running. Through the hallway, down to the old furnace in the laundry room. There, behind it, wedged in the crawlspace, was a metal cash box.

Inside was a stack of birth certificates.

And one of them… had my name.

But my father was listed as Luis Herrera.

My uncle.

I sat on the floor for a long time. It didn’t make sense. Couldn’t be true. But the dates lined up. My mom was twenty-three in that photo. That was the year I was born. She wasn’t married yet. And Luis—my “uncle”—had been living alone in this house ever since.

I finally called my mom again. This time she picked up.

Her voice was ragged. “I told you not to stay.”

I asked her flat-out. “Was Luis… my real dad?”

Silence.

Then a quiet, painful, “Yes.”

She said it happened fast. A mistake. A one-night thing that spiraled. My father, the man who raised me, never knew. She and Luis made a deal—she’d leave, raise me far away, and he’d keep his distance. But he never really let go.

She’d discovered the tapes by accident when she came to visit him with me one weekend. After that, she cut contact. But she never told me. Thought she was protecting me.

I didn’t know what to feel. Rage, confusion, heartbreak—all of it twisted together.

I stayed one more night in the house. Couldn’t sleep. Every creak made my chest tighten. But in the morning, I made a decision.

I took every VHS tape and burned them in the backyard. The letters too. The Polaroid never turned up. Neither did the birth certificate after that night. Like the house itself swallowed it again.

But I kept the metal box.

I sold the house two months later to a developer who planned to tear it down. Didn’t feel like a home—it felt like a trap. I took the money and started a small business I’d always dreamed of. Quiet, nothing flashy. A little used bookshop with a coffee bar in the back. Called it Chapter Two.

My mom visits once a week now. We don’t talk about Luis. But sometimes she’ll pause at a book I’ve shelved and just say, “That was your grandfather’s favorite,” or “I used to read that to you as a baby.”

We’re healing. Slowly. The truth cracked something open, but it didn’t destroy us.

And maybe that’s the lesson in all of it.

Some secrets fester in the dark. But once they’re out in the light, you get to decide what happens next. You can bury them again—or you can build something new on top of them.

I chose the second.