"Sometimes the heaviest doors are the ones inside us. The ones we avoid, until we're strong enough to turn the key."
The drawer had always been there.
Tucked at the bottom of Papa's old wooden cupboard.
Not locked. Not hidden.
But untouched.
Krish had seen it every day.
Dust gathered on its handle like a warning.
His hand would hover over it,
then move away.
For over a year,
it remained closed.
Because some places feel too sacred to open.
Because grief needs time to loosen its grip.
But that morning,
he woke with a dream still clinging to his skin.
In it, Papa had stood in the doorway,
silent,
simply pointing to the drawer.
No words.
Just a gesture.
A nudge.
A permission.
And that was enough.
Krish sat before the cupboard.
The morning light was soft.
The house still sleepy.
He curled his knees under him,
placed his hand on the knob,
and slowly pulled.
The drawer creaked.
Not in protest,
but in remembrance.
Inside,
neatly stacked,
were letters.
Photos.
A rusted pen.
A packet of incense.
A sketchbook with a cloth tie.
His hands trembled.
He touched each item like it might vanish.
Or burn.
Or speak.
The letters were addressed to no one.
Pages folded in half.
Ink faded.
But the handwriting—unmistakable.
Papa's.
He read the first one.
It began:
"Some thoughts are too small to say aloud,
but too loud to keep inside.
So I leave them here.
To a future that might find them."
Krish read one after another.
Letters about fears.
Failures.
Regrets.
Hope.
There were pages where Papa talked about being unsure as a father.
About not knowing how to talk to Krish as he got older.
About loving him so much it scared him.
One line read:
"I don't want to be perfect for my son.
I just want to be remembered by him with warmth.
Even if he forgets my face,
may he remember that I tried."
Krish's eyes stung.
He touched that line with his thumb,
as if pressing it would make it more real.
He found photos tucked between the pages—
one staged.
Just life.
His father brushing his teeth.
His mother smiling shyly from the garden.
Krish as a baby asleep on Papa's chest.
The sketchbook was last.
He untied it slowly.
Inside were charcoal drawings.
Rough.
Unfinished.
But honest.
One was of the window in Krish's room.
Another of a spoon left in a bowl.
A third—of a boy at the edge of a river.
Krish.
Underneath it,
Papa had written:
"He waits like water does—
quiet,
but always moving."
Krish couldn't breathe.
The tears came again.
The kind that bend your shoulders
and make your chest feel like a bursting dam.
He closed the drawer,
but not fully.
That night,
he told Ma.
"I opened the drawer."
She looked at him for a long time.
Then said,
"I was wondering when you would."
"You knew?"
She nodded.
"He kept those things for you.
He said someday you'd need to know
that even in silence,
he was talking to you."
They sat together on the floor.
Krish showed her the sketchbook.
She traced one of the drawings with her finger.
Her lips trembled.
But she didn't cry.
"He wasn't perfect," she said.
Krish shook his head.
"No. But he was ours."
That night,
he didn't write a new letter.
Instead,
he added a page to Papa's notebook.
A reply.
"Dear Papa,
I found the drawer.
Found your thoughts
when I needed them most.
You worried I might forget your face.
I haven't.
It's in the mirror.
In the way I sit.
In the way I look away when I'm nervous.
I remember you in wind,
in rice too salty,
in broken pencils,
in socks folded the wrong way.
I don't need you to be perfect.
I just need you to keep showing up in the little things.
And you do.
Every day.
Love,
Krish."
He placed the letter inside the drawer.
Didn't tie it up.
Didn't seal it.
Because some stories aren't meant to be closed again.
They are meant to stay open.
So love can keep breathing through them.