My Father Left Me a Locked Toolbox After He Passed Away, But When My Stepmother Offered Me $5,000 to Throw It Away, I Knew There Was Something Inside He Never Wanted Her to Find — What I Discovered Changed Everything

It was an envelope, sealed in thick plastic. Inside were legal papers — divorce papers — between my father and a woman named Susannah. My mother.

The same mother I’d been told had died when I was two.

My heart raced as I read the details. The divorce cited “irreconcilable differences caused by instability and unsafe behavior.” My father hadn’t lost his wife — he’d left her. And April had known.

Furious, I drove to April’s house. When she opened the door, I held up the key. “You knew,” I said. “You lied to me.”

Her face went pale. “It was for your own good,” she insisted. “Your mother wasn’t well — she had episodes, disappeared for days. He was protecting you.”

Tears blurred my vision. “Protecting me? By pretending she was dead?”

April said nothing. And I realized it wasn’t just about keeping Dad’s secret — she’d wanted to erase my mother completely.

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