**The Third Room – Not for Guests**
“Don’t you dare go in there!” Margaret Hastings snapped, rushing from the kitchen with dripping hands. “How many times must I tell you?”
Ten-year-old Daniel froze, his fingers brushing the slightly open door before turning to his grandmother, confusion and hurt clouding his wide blue eyes.
“Gran, what’s in there? I just wanted to look…”
“Nothing! Just dust!” Margaret marched over, firmly shut the door, and twisted the key in the lock. “Go watch telly or play with your Lego instead.”
Daniel shrugged and shuffled into the lounge, but Margaret caught the way his gaze lingered on that forbidden door. She exhaled sharply, tucking the key into her apron pocket. Here we go again. Every school holiday, it was the same.
“Mum, why must you frighten him?” Laura stepped out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel. “He’s just a boy. He’s curious.”
“And you aren’t?” Margaret shot back.
Laura froze, the towel halting mid-motion.
“I… I don’t need to be,” she said softly. “Why dig up the past?”
“Exactly. And neither does Daniel. Let him play outside instead of snooping where he shouldn’t.”
Laura opened her mouth to argue but fell silent. She knew that tone—the one that meant debate was pointless. Better to distract Daniel entirely.
Margaret returned to the kitchen, flicked on the kettle. Her hands trembled as she pulled out the teacups. Twenty years had passed, yet the mere thought of that room still pierced her chest like a blade.
After dinner, Daniel sprawled on the sofa with his tablet while Laura read in the armchair. Margaret washed dishes, watching her grandson from the corner of her eye. He was bright. Too bright.
“Gran,” Daniel said suddenly, eyes still fixed on the screen, “why do you have a three-bedroom house if you only use two?”
A plate slipped from Margaret’s grasp, clattering against the sink.
“How do you know it’s three-bedroom?” she asked carefully.
“Well, I can count doors! That’s your bedroom, there’s the lounge where I sleep, and then that one—always locked.”
Laura glanced up from her book. Margaret stood rigid, her back turned, shoulders tense.
“It’s… storage,” she murmured. “Old things. Nothing for you.”
“Can I see? I’ll be careful.”
“No!” Margaret spun around, voice sharp. “Don’t ask again!”
Daniel flinched; even Laura raised her brows.
“Mum, what’s gotten into you?” Laura stood. “You never shout at Daniel.”
Margaret leaned against the counter, pressing a hand to her face.
“Sorry, love. I’m… just tired. Don’t be cross with your gran.”
Daniel nodded, but suspicion still shadowed his gaze. Clever boy. Too clever.
That night, after Daniel had gone to bed, Laura joined her mother at the kitchen table.
“Mum… maybe it’s time?”
“Time for what?”
“To finally clear that room. It’s been twenty years. Dad’s gone, and you—”
“Don’t you dare!” Margaret stood so abruptly her chair toppled. “Don’t touch it!”
“Mum, calm down. I just think it’s not healthy, living like this. You’re torturing yourself.”
Margaret righted the chair, sinking back down. Her hands shook.
“I’m not. I just… need it this way. Knowing nothing’s been disturbed.”
“But Daniel’s growing up. Soon he’ll need his own room when he visits. Will you keep him on the sofa forever?”
“There’s time yet. He’s still small.”
Laura sighed. She remembered that room. The way it had looked two decades ago—the desk by the window, the bookshelves, the narrow bed. A life frozen mid-breath.
“Remember how cross he’d get?” Laura whispered. “When you tidied his things? He’d yell about his *system*, how no one was to touch it.”
Margaret smiled through tears.
“I remember. So stubborn. Wanted to do everything himself. Even carrying his dishes to the kitchen—said a man ought to clean up after himself.”
“He was only seventeen, Mum.”
“Only seventeen… but he seemed so grown. Knew everything, had an opinion on politics, would debate Dad for hours…”
Laura nodded. She remembered her little brother—his laugh, his stubbornness, his absurd determination to study engineering.
“Sometimes I dream he’s just… away,” Margaret whispered. “That he’ll come home one day and say, *Mum, why’d you lock my door? I left my keys inside!*”
“Mum…”
“I know, I know. But it helps. Thinking he’s just… on a long trip.”
Laura took her mother’s hand.
“He’s not coming back. And keeping his room won’t change that.”
“What will?” Margaret choked. “What will make me forget the hospital? The way the doctors shook their heads? How I begged God, promised anything, just to keep him alive?”
Laura said nothing. A stupid, senseless accident—James crossing the road, a driver who didn’t see him in the dark. Three days in hospital, never waking.
“Remember,” Margaret said suddenly, “how he taught me to make scones? Said I folded the dough wrong, that they’d turn out tough. Stood there lecturing me, flour up to his elbows.”
“I remember. And how he always left his lamp on. You’d scold him, and he’d say he’d turn it off later.”
“Later… I thought we had so much *later*.” Margaret’s voice broke. “That he’d grow up, marry, bring his children round. That I’d be a grandmother spoiling his babies…”
They sat in silence, the weight of memory pressing between them. Outside, night deepened; only the kitchen light held the dark at bay.
“Daniel looks like him,” Laura said softly.
“Yes. Same stubbornness, same curiosity. Eyes just as clever.”
“Is that why it hurts sometimes? Seeing him?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Not hurts. It’s… strange. Like time’s folded back. Like James is little again, asking a thousand questions a day.”
“Have you thought Daniel might need this too? He doesn’t even know he had an uncle.”
“Why should he? Let him grow up without that pain.”
“Mum, memory isn’t just pain. It’s love, too. James was kind. Funny. Daniel has a right to know.”
Margaret stood, walked to the window. Streetlamps glowed below; somewhere, a dog barked.
“I’m scared, Laura. That if I open that door… it’ll truly be over. That I’ll lose him all over again.”
“Didn’t you lose him twenty years ago?” Laura whispered.
Margaret turned, searching her daughter’s face.
“You think I’ve been wrong?”
“I think you’ve survived. But maybe it’s time to try living.”
That night, Margaret lay awake, listening to Daniel’s soft snores—so like James’s as a boy.
At dawn, she rose, creeping to the hallway. The key slipped from her dressing gown pocket as she faced the door. Her hand shook as she turned the lock.
A whisper of hinges, then light flooded the room—dust dancing in the sudden glow. Everything stood untouched: the desk cluttered with textbooks, band posters on the walls, the narrow bed with its rumpled pillow.
Margaret traced the spines of his books—*Physics, Mathematics, History*—then lifted a framed photo from the bedside table. James at prom, grinning, arms slung around friends.
“I’m sorry, son,” she murmured, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Sorry I kept you locked away. You’d have hated it.”
After a while, she stood, switched off the light—but left the door unlocked. The key, she placed on the hall shelf beside a family portrait: the last one they’d ever taken together.
At breakfast, Daniel, ever persistent, tried again:
“Gran, what *is* in that room?”
Laura tensed, ready to intervene, but Margaret set down her spoon.
“That was my son’s room. Your uncle James.”
Daniel’s eyes widened. “I have an uncle? Where is he?”
Margaret looked from her grandson to her daughter.
“He’s gone, love. Died when he was very young.”
“Was he nice?”
“So nice. Clever, kind—so much like you.”
Daniel chewed his lip, then asked softly, “Can I see his room?”
Margaret stood, fetched the key from the shelf.
“Yes. But gently, all right? Everything’s just as he left it.”
Daniel took the key solemnly. Laura watched, silent.
Sunlight streamed in as Margaret drew back the curtains, dust motes swirling gold.
“This was where he studied,” she said, touching the desk.And as Daniel traced his fingers over the worn cover of his uncle’s physics textbook, Margaret finally let herself believe that some loves never truly leave—they simply wait, quiet as sunlight on an opened door.
