My husband passed away after 62 years of marriage. At his funeral, a young girl approached me, handed me an envelope, and said, "He asked me to give this to you today."

Inside was a letter written in Harold's handwriting, and a small brass key that jingled against the table when I turned the envelope over.

I unfolded the letter.   “My love,   ” it began. “   I should have told you years ago, but I couldn’t. Sixty-five years ago, I thought I had buried this secret forever, but it has haunted me all my life. You deserve the truth. This key opens garage 122 at the address below. Go when you are ready. Everything is there.”

I read it twice.

I wasn't ready. Nevertheless, I put on my coat, called a taxi, and went there.

"  Sixty-five years ago, I thought I had buried that secret forever."

The garage was on the outskirts of town, a long row of identical metal doors on a plot of land that looked unchanged since the 1970s. I found number 122, inserted the key into the padlock, and lifted the door.

The smell hit me first: old paper and cedar, the particular intimacy of an enclosed space.

In the middle of the concrete floor stood an enormous wooden crate, taller than me, covered with a thick layer of cobwebs and dust that testified to its presence there for a very long time.

I wiped the front with a cloth from my pocket, found the latch and lifted the lid.

It was the smell that struck me first.