I married a widower – his son insisted his mom was still in our home

When I married Ben, I thought I knew what I was signing up for. He was a widower raising his five-year-old son, Lucas. The first months were blissful, and Lucas quickly started calling me “Mom.” Ben and I shared proud smiles every time he did. One evening, as Lucas and I played in the living room, he looked up at me with wide eyes. “MOM SAYS YOU SHOULDN'T TOUCH HER THINGS,” he whispered, glancing toward the hallway. “What do you mean, sweetie?” I asked, my heart racing.

Ben was a widower raising his 5-year-old son all by himself, and when I got involved with him and later married him, I knew what I was signing up for. Luckily, little Lucas accepted me with arms wide open. He even started calling me mom, and I loved that more than anything. I simply loved my new home.

Lucas has been the sweetest little boy. He missed his mom but his dad made sure they kept the memory of her alive. Lucas often talked about Irene, mostly about the things Ben told him about her because he was too young when she passed away in order to be able to remember much.

Life felt good. Ben and Lucas became my entire world, and I felt like the happiest woman with them in my life.

One evening, as I put Lucas to bed and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek, he whispered something in my ear that gave me chills. “You know, my mom still lives in this house. I see her sometimes.”

My heart started pounding faster. “Oh, Lucas,” I said, “your mom will always live in your beautiful heart.”

Days gone by and I almost forgot about Lucas’ words until strange things started taking place.

After Lucas was done playing with his toys, I would pick them up and place them inside the toy box, but the following morning, they were all over the living room again. When I rearranged the kitchen cabinets, I would find the items placed as they were before I even touched them.

“Am I going crazy?” I thought to myself. Although I knew I wasn’t imagining things, I tried not to think about it much, but I understood I couldn’t ignore it any longer after the photo of Irene, my husband’s late wife, that I placed in the hallway reappeared in he living room the following morning.

With a chilly expression, I asked Ben one day, “Hun, are you moving things around the house?”

Looking at me as though I didn’t know what I was talking about, he said, “Of course not, Brenda, why would I?”

I couldn’t wrap my head around the mystery surrounding the objects in my home, until Lucas told me one say, “Mom says she doesn’t want you to touch her things.”

“What was going on?” I kept asking myself. “Is it possible that Lucas is telling the truth? Could Irene really be alive?”

That evening, I decided to stay awake. I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. Not knowing what to do, I decided to check the attic. It was where Ben kept most of Irene’s things. I was there before, but maybe I missed something important.

Quietly, I got out of bed and headed towards the attic, trying not to wake Ben or Lucas. Honestly, I felt guilty about inspecting the place, but the curiosity got better of me. I needed to know what was going on in my home.

In the attic, there were plenty of things that belonged to Irene. Her wedding ring was carefully wrapped in a piece of paper and placed on the table. Dusty boxes containing her personal things were also there. But, there were also items that were freshly moved.

As I looked around, I noticed a small door in the corner. It was half hidden behind a bunch of boxes. I hadn’t noticed it before.

The door led me to a narrow room dimly lit by a small window. And there on the bed lay a woman. She was all covered in a blanket.

I approached closer and saw a familiar face that I had seen in Ben’s albums. It was his sister, Emily.

“Emily, is that you?” I asked quietly. She looked at me, surprised that I found her.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said in a quiet voice. “I’ve been here for three years.”

“Three years!?” I yelled. “But why? Why are you hiding here?”

“Because I love it here,” she said. “Ben would be mad at me if he knows you found me,” she added.

“Emily, do you know Lucas believes you are his mom, not his aunt?” I asked her.

“I know, I sometimes tell him stories about his mother, you know, because he misses her so much.”

She then got a bit nervous and yelled, “And don’t tell me what to do. It’s better if he things his mom is alive.”

I left the attic and went to bed. In the morning, I told Ben about the previous night.

“Oh, Brenda, I should have told you about Emily earlier,” he said. “But you know, she’s sick, and she refuses to get medical help. I couldn’t just leave her so she stayed in the attic,” he explained.

It wasn’t about Emily staying with us, it was about her playing games with Lucas’ mind, and I made sure Ben understood the severity of the situation.

“You are right,” he said. “She’s confusing Lucas, and I had no idea she ever spoke to him.”

After a couple of days, Ben gathered the courage to tell Lucas about his aunt. He explained that his mom wasn’t coming back, and that his aunt pretended to be her because she loved him and didn’t want him to suffer. He also explained that she was living in our home because she was sick.

Lucas was way too young to understand that, but we knew that he would once he got a bit older.

As for Emily, she refused medical help and even screamed and cried, but Ben stood firm in his decision to have her admitted to a hospital where she could receive the right treatment for her mental condition.

Hopefully, when she gets better, she would be part of our home again.