After my grandfather’s funeral, a letter appeared on my doorstep. Inside was a small key and a note from Grandpa, saying it would unlock a hidden compartment in the attic. What I found there revealed a truth he had hidden from me my entire life.

My name is Sloane. I’m twenty-seven years old, and a few weeks ago, I buried the only family I ever had — my grandfather, Edgar.

He raised me from the time I was two. My parents were killed in a car accident, and I grew up knowing them only through a handful of photographs he kept tucked away in a drawer.

The one that stayed with me the most showed my mother holding me on her hip while my father stood beside her, one arm resting lightly on her shoulder.

Those photos were all I had of them, and Grandpa made sure they never felt like distant ghosts hanging over my childhood.

He took me in and raised me in his small house on the edge of town — a modest place with peeling paint, a lemon tree in the backyard, and a porch swing that creaked louder than the cicadas on summer nights.

But it was home, and with him, I never once felt abandoned.

Every morning, he made me breakfast and insisted on packing my lunch himself, always slipping a handwritten note inside. He held my tiny hand as he walked me to preschool, stopping every few steps so I could point out rocks and flowers as if they were priceless treasures, and every night he read to me until I fell asleep.

It wasn’t easy — I understand that now — but Grandpa made sure I never saw how much he struggled.

He worked whatever jobs he could until he turned seventy: handyman, grocery stocker, bus driver, anything that kept the lights on and my backpack full. I didn’t understand those sacrifices back then. I only knew that whenever I needed something, he somehow made it appear.

He gave me love, safety, and a life filled with warmth. Grandpa filled every corner of my world.

I never once suspected he was hiding something that would eventually turn my entire life upside down.