**Three Letters Without a Return Address**
It was quiet—no wind, no rustling leaves, no birdsong—as though nature itself had frozen in eternal stillness. The people around the open coffin and the gaping grave stood silent too. Emily held her father’s arm. He stood hunched, bewildered, his gaze fixed on Mum.
Nearby stood her parents’ friends: Margot and her husband Vincent. Emily had known them since childhood, calling them by their first names. Margot dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, while Vincent stared past the coffin into the distance. Across from Emily and her father were three of Mum’s colleagues, their noses red, eyes swollen from tears. Strangers, too—people Emily had never seen. But if they’d come, they must have known Mum.
No one stepped forward anymore to say goodbye or offer condolences. That had all been done at the mortuary. Now they just waited for the ceremony to end.
Emily noticed the two gravediggers. The one in charge, sensing the moment, caught her eye as if to ask, *Ready?* She gave a slight nod. Time. They lifted the coffin lid leaning against a tree and moved toward the casket.
“Everyone said their goodbyes? We’ll close it now,” the gravedigger said.
Then a quiet but firm voice cut through:
“Wait.”
Every head turned toward the speaker. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat approached the coffin. The workers hesitated, holding the lid. The stranger laid two white roses on Mum’s chest and rested his palm over her folded hands, as if to warm them. He stood like that for minutes while the others watched, wondering who he was. One of the gravediggers coughed, nudging him along. Finally, the man stepped back, and the workers sealed the coffin, securing it with screws before lowering it into the grave. Emily was the first to throw in a handful of earth.
As the men shoveled dirt over the burial, Emily searched for the man in the hat—but he was gone. Once the cross was placed and wreaths arranged, the mourners filed out of the cemetery. Emily and her father lingered a little longer.
“Dad, let’s go,” she said, and he let her lead him away.
All the way home, she wondered who the stranger could have been. He’d slipped in unnoticed and vanished just as quietly. His face had been hidden beneath the hat’s brim—she’d only caught a sharp jawline, clean-shaven, and perhaps glasses (though she wasn’t sure about those).
The wake was held at a café near their house. Emily couldn’t eat. She was exhausted, willing the day to end. When the last guests left, she and her father walked home in silence. She clutched Mum’s framed portrait—identical to the one left at the grave—against her chest.
“How are you holding up?” she asked.
Her father only nodded.
“Dad… who was that man at the graveside?”
“How should I know?”
There was an edge in his voice. They didn’t speak the rest of the way. The flat smelled of medicine and sickness despite the open windows. Her father collapsed onto the sofa, eyes shut. Emily draped a blanket over him and sat down.
She glanced at the bedroom door—the room where Mum had lain. *”She’s at peace now,”* Emily repeated inwardly, echoing the words from the funeral. Mum was free from the torturous illness. Emily was free from the dread and waiting. Her father—from his helplessness.
Tears welled up. She retreated to the kitchen, dropped her head onto her arms, and wept silently.
The pain dulled with time. Emily cleared the room of all traces of Mum’s illness. She attended university but felt hollow, adrift.
Her father barely spoke now, shuffling in slippers like an old man. The sound grated on her. His grief was palpable—but wasn’t hers just as heavy? She’d lost her mother. The weight of the house and his care fell on her shoulders alone.
“Dad, what should we do with Mum’s clothes? They don’t fit me,” she asked once, just to hear him speak.
“Dunno. Give them away.”
Easy to say—but to whom? Over the weekend, she sorted through Mum’s things. The newer pieces she kept; the worn-out ones, she bagged for the bin. It didn’t feel right, tossing them, but sentiment was a luxury.
Their shoe sizes didn’t match either. She left the old boots by the bins—maybe someone needy would take them. But in a box, she found pristine white pumps. Too big for her. As she tucked them away, she spotted three yellowed envelopes at the bottom—two sent to Mum two decades apart, the third two years later. None had return addresses.
Why had Mum hidden them here? Why keep them at all? Reading others’ letters was wrong—but Mum was gone. Maybe the writer was too. Emily kept glancing at them as she worked.
She couldn’t rest until she knew. If the letters held a secret, why would Mum have kept them? Unless she *wanted* them found. They hadn’t been well-hidden. Maybe she’d forgotten them.
Emily took the first letter.
*You’re my happiness. I’ve missed you since the moment I left… Thank you for being in my life. I think of you always, love you…*
A lover’s words. A farewell.
The second letter:
*I feared this, yet expected it… What will you do? You know I’m married—I never hid that. I’ve two children… I can’t leave them. You’re young, beautiful—you’ll marry. If you keep the child, tell me. I’ll send money. Don’t refuse—it’s the least I can do…*
More regrets, laments about timing, missed chances.
The third:
*It’s my fault, I admit. But what’s done is done… You named her Emily? I’m leaving. Don’t wait for me. Live freely. Keep our secret—burn these letters. Thank you for the time we had…*
No signatures, no names—just a checkmark shaped like a bird on the last. So Dad wasn’t her real father. There was another. Mum had loved someone before, had *her* with him. A clandestine affair. Some important man—why else omit his name?
Why hadn’t Mum burned them? Couldn’t bring herself to?
*What now?* Without these letters, she’d never have known. But Dad *was* her father—the one who’d sat by her sickbed, pushed her on swings, scolded her for sneaking cigarettes. That other man? A stranger who’d abandoned them.
She tucked the letters under her lingerie. Dad would never look there.
Her parents had rarely argued. She’d never doubted he was her father. He’d loved Mum, loved *her*. He was shattered now. Mum had been beautiful before the illness—Emily looked nothing like her. Nothing like Dad either. How had she never noticed?
She decided never to tell him. He had no one else. The truth would only take her away from him too.
The man at the graveside—had it been *him*? If so, he’d loved her enough to come. But hidden his face. Some celebrity, perhaps?
*Mum, you secret keeper.*
By fourth year, a renowned magazine hosted a gala for its 25th anniversary. Emily’s faculty scored invites. Hers came via Cyril, her new boyfriend—an aspiring journalist already published.
“You coming?” he’d asked, waving the ticket.
“Obviously!” she’d grinned.
The ballroom glittered with celebrities. Waitresses wove through the crowd with champagne flutes. Speeches rang out, toasts made.
A banner bore the magazine’s logo—an open journal, above it a torn sheet shaped like a bird. Familiar.
“What does the logo mean?” she asked a passerby.
“The gull—the founder’s emblem. Never heard of Jonathan Gull? He’s right over there.”
She turned—and gasped.
The checkmark in the letter. *Gull.* The founder’s surname.
No coincidence.
She pushed toward him before he could vanish again. Up close, she faltered—what to say?
“I’m Emily Wren,” she blurted.
A few heads turned. His eyes were hidden behind glasses, reflecting chandelier light.
“Remember Anne Wren?” she pressed. “My mother.”
His posture shifted.
“Let’s step outside,” he said, steering her to the lobby.
They sat.
“What do you want, Emily?”
“You were at Mum’s funeral. I recognised you. I—I read your letters. She didn’t burn them. I think she wanted me to find them. I don’t want anything from you. I have a father. He loves me. Did you ever want to see me? Us?”
His pause was answer enough.
“You loved her?”
“Very much.”
“But you were married.”
“Timing… it’s cruel. You don’t look like her. Journalism, fourth year?”She took his business card with the embossed gull, tucked it away unread, and walked back to the party, knowing she’d never call.
