When my mother passed, I thought I knew everything about her. She lived simply, never hinted at secrets. So I was shocked when her will left me a remote cabin I’d never heard of.
I drove out, expecting emptiness — but the cabin wasn’t abandoned. Smoke curled from the chimney. The door opened before I could knock.
A man inside said, “You might as well come in.”
His name was Tomas. “I knew your mother,” he said. “We built this place together.”
She’d never mentioned him. But as we sat by the fire, he told me about the life they shared long ago — a love that ended under family pressure. Before leaving, he handed me letters she’d written but never sent.
One held a faded photo of a baby. On the back: “Our little miracle, even if she’ll never know.”
It was me.
Tomas wasn’t just part of her past. He was my father.
He never said it out loud — just quietly kept the cabin alive, waiting for me.
I stayed. Repaired it. Turned it into a retreat called Hollow Pines. People come to heal. They leave notes, poems, pieces of themselves.
The first entry in the guestbook reads:
This place healed someone once. Maybe it’ll heal you too.
Have you ever discovered a secret that changed everything?
