Beatrice sat up on the couch and stretched. The lumpy cushions always left her feeling bruised. She pulled her hand-knit slippers onto her size 6 feet and padded across the cold floor to the tiny brown refrigerator. She filled a coffee cup with OJ and foraged for breakfast. The fridge always contained at least a six-pack of beer and a leftover pizza, but that morning it was nearly empty. One beer and a few slices of cheese. When she closed the refrigerator door, she noticed a small note on the Formica counter.

 “Dear Beatrice, I have to work late tonight. Swing by the diner and wish your old auntie a happy Thanksgiving. Love, Doris.”

Happy Thanksgiving, Beatrice thought, and looked around the empty room. She reminded herself to be thankful, but a familiar loneliness sank into her gut. It had been so long since the holidays were happy. Memories of turkey and bacon wafting out of her mother’s shotgun kitchen had nearly faded away, but not quite. There was a time when her father would tickle her under her chin, and her mother would laugh. She was a little girl then. She felt her throat tighten. This year was supposed to be different. She gripped her mug of juice until the tears dried in her eyes.

Beatrice neatly folded her thin, flowered bedsheet and stashed it with her pillow in the hall closet as she did every morning. She returned to the sofa and peeked again into Doris’s bedroom.

The room was tiny, barely big enough to hold the queen-sized bed and its painted iron headboard. The bed’s lattice crown was twisted with iron flowers and vines, but the paint was cracked and peeling. A ratty patchwork quilt covered the mattress. The bed was shoved against the far wall next to a crooked window, and Beatrice could see the brick driveway through the yellowed sheers that hung from a rusted curtain rod. She inched her way inside.

A small dresser flanked the wall next to the door, leaving just a thin strip of worn wood flooring between it and the bed. The path led to a narrow closet door. It was slightly open, and the sleeve of Doris’s flannel robe waved at her. Dusty knickknacks crowded the top of the dresser. In the corner, several necklaces strangled a porcelain cat. Beatrice couldn’t remember seeing her aunt wear jewelry of any kind, ever. She stepped into the room and ran a finger over the gold chains and beads.

In the other corner, two young women smiled up at her from a black-and-white photograph. The girls looked strangely familiar. They couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old with their happy, wide-eyed, and optimistic faces. It was the image of her own mother, Ilene, that Beatrice first recognized from a few buried photographs she’d seen growing up. The other woman must be Doris. She snatched up the photograph in disbelief. Doris looked beautiful. This younger version of her aunt was nothing like the stout, worn-out woman she had come to know. Her hair was neatly curled in a bob. She was wearing high heels and a dress.

Despite how unsettling it was to see Doris in a dress, eventually Beatrice found herself staring into her mother’s eyes. Ilene smiled innocently up at her from the picture frame. It didn’t seem possible that the girl in the photograph could also be the woman who raised her. Tears made the picture a blur. She carefully placed the photograph back in its dusty home.

Beatrice crept toward the closet. As she touched the door, cold fear inched up her spine, and she couldn’t help but look over her shoulder. She had no idea what Doris would do if she caught her snooping. Wincing from the hard slap she could feel coming, she swung the closet door open.

A tightly packed pile of clothing threatened to collapse on top of her. It was as though twenty years’ worth had been shoved inside. Coats, suits, dresses, blouses, linen bags—all were crammed onto the three-foot rod. Wire hangers were stacked one on top of the other. The floor and shelf above the rack were packed with shoe boxes.

Beatrice could not remember Doris wearing one thread of clothing in the lot. Her fingers itched to pull out an item and take a closer look, but she was certain she would never be able to fit it back into the mess. A glimpse of a mink coat teased her from the back of the closet. Knee-high leather go-go boots with three-inch heels leaned toward the front.

The Doris she knew wore the thick-soled leather lace-ups favored by nurses and cashiers. Her aunt’s daily wardrobe consisted of polyester pants and white button-down shirts. Beatrice couldn’t remember her wearing anything else. There was no sign of Aunt Doris in the whole closet, except for the robe hanging on the inside of the door from a nail.

Beatrice carefully closed the closet and approached the dresser. She didn’t know why she was being so quiet. Doris wouldn’t be home for hours, but she found herself holding her breath as she opened the top drawer.

Granny underwear and socks were folded in straight piles. Beatrice averted her eyes and shut the drawer. She nearly lost her nerve and checked the door. There was no one there. The middle drawer was next. She found five pairs of polyester slacks and seven button-down shirts. This was the Doris she knew and loved—or tried to anyway. That left the bottom drawer. She pulled on it, but it resisted. The drawer facing was plain pine and had a little carved flower in the middle. Beatrice scowled at the dainty rose as she struggled to wrench the drawer free, pulling again and again. It finally flung open, and she fell back on her rump.

Paper—reams and reams of yellowing paper were strewn about in the drawer. Beatrice lifted a page from the top of the three-inch pile. It was on letterhead that read “First Bank of Cleveland.” It was a notice to a customer regarding their safe deposit box. Beatrice scowled and looked at it more carefully. It was a carbon copy. She could tell by the feathered ink around the edges of the typeface. The letter was signed “William S. Thompson, Director of Audits.” Under his name were the initials of the typist, “DED.” Doris? Had Doris typed the memo? Beatrice sat back, stunned, with the paper in her hand. Had she worked at the bank too?

Beatrice laid the letter back down in the drawer. Doris hated answering questions about the past. She never explained why she had left Marietta all those years ago, or why she and her sister, Ilene, hated each other. She certainly never mentioned working at the bank.

Beatrice thumbed through more pages, looking for some sort of explanation. Underneath sheets and sheets of bank letters, she noticed a different type of paper toward the drawer bottom. It was beige and soft, like cloth. She carefully lifted the stack of bank letters at a higher angle so she could get a better look at the parchment below. It was covered in beautiful cursive ink. She read upside down.

My Dearest Doris,The nights without you are killing me. I must see you again. Forget this terrible business, forget my wife, forget everything but our love. Every time I . . .

She couldn’t make out any more of the letter without pulling it out of the drawer. She didn’t dare try. Doris would notice if her things had been shuffled around. She closed the drawer, careful not to disturb any of the papers, and tiptoed out of her aunt’s bedroom.

Beatrice sat on the couch, bewildered. Aunt Doris had been in love, or rather someone had been in love with her. That someone had a wife. Her head spun with the possibilities. Did the affair happen while Doris worked at the bank? Was the man some shark, like Mr. Halloran? Did she lose her job because of it? Beatrice glanced back at her bedroom.

Doris had secrets; she had a closet full of fancy clothes that she never wore and a drawer of letters. On top of the dresser, the black-and-white photograph sat in its frame, and her aunt was young and smiling.