text: Houses are like the heart, each room storing away the past joys and sorrows of memory. Four generations of memories lined our front room mantelpiece, crowded the narrow hallway, spattered the walls and nightstands in the bedroom. They had even crept into the kitchen to mingle with the cast-iron cookware and the rich scents of sweet fruit and pungent spices. Each picture told a story that even my youngest child knew by heart. This one was of Grandpa wearing his ridiculously tattered hat. He always hung it right there by the door so he wouldn’t forget it before he went fishing. That humorous one at the end of the hall was of my mother and her dolls. They went everywhere she went, even into the bathtub. The one in the kitchen hanging above the stove was of my grandma. She was trying to fry eggs for Grandpa, sunny-side up just the way he liked them, but she turned the heat up too high. The grease fire ate its way right up the walls and ravaged the ceiling. It took three coats of plaster to cover up the blisters and black streaks. Each picture was a window to a room in Grandpa’s heart. By the time I was grown, I thought I had peered through all his windows. But every soul has secrets it has locked away, memories too sacred or too sad to share with the rest of the world. I discovered Grandpa’s secret the day we began remodeling the hallway. Behind the wall we found quite a bit of space, and a door. My husband and I were intrigued. The curved handle stuck until my husband gave it a sharp rap with the mallet. My first impression on entering the lightless room was of the deep smell of cedar with a hint of lavender. Even though I had never known my grandmother, the scent reminded me of her. By the dim light peeking in from the hallway, I could make out furniture: a dresser against one wall, a narrow bed and dressing table against the other. A squat lamp sitting on one side of a little bookshelf still worked. Its mellow light revealed a rolling landscape of soft pinks and dark-stained wood. Blushing angels and shining stars hung suspended over a crib full of smiling rag dolls and teddy bears bedecked with jumbo pink plaid bows. Lavender-scented powder spilling out of a cracked mauve container coated the changing table on the dresser top. Mouse prints marked several journeys across the snowy plain. A row of boards evenly nailed against the wall between the crib and bed outlined a window. It bothered me that those boards were there, choking the light off from such a sweet little room, cutting off the view to the outside world. Why had this room been kept such a secret? The dressing table contained a small round swiveling mirror with cherubs carved into its frame, some simple toiletries, and a thick piece of pink parchment. I picked up this last, blew the dust off, and read: &#x200B; “To my love May we continue To walk the path of Happiness With our second Bundle of Joy” &#x200B; Grandpa’s fancy signature floated in the lower right corner, ending in a flourish of hearts. My husband and I stared at one another in surprise. “Your mother had a sister,” he said. “Did you know about this?” “She didn’t even know,” I said softly. Grandpa had never told anyone. I could see him as he had been in life, wearing his plaid workman’s shirt and tan suspenders, a heavy tool belt strapped low around his waist. Grandpa had been a tall, solid man with a large laugh. We grandkids had adored him. I could imagine him painstakingly carving the bars on the crib, then hanging the angels and stars with a smile of anticipation for the little head that would lie beneath them. It wrung at my heart to think of him entering the newly furnished room stooped over with grief, knowing that his young wife and their new child would never enter here. I looked over at the bed and saw him as he must have looked then, sitting at its edge, his face buried in his big carpenter’s hands, his broad frame shaking in bereavement. I had finally viewed the last room in his heart. With tears in my own eyes, I turned off the lamp and shut the door. There were no windows looking in, and there never would be. Every soul has its secret. I would leave Grandpa his.