Wife’s Diary

August 1904.

I found a strange diary at home. Six years prior I got married to my wife and we chose this old home to make our own. The year before last, my wife and two daughters went on a cruise. The ship sank and everyone died. Several days later the bodies of my beloved daughters washed up on shore, but my wife was never found.

I called the carpenter a few days ago for some reconstruction work, and he passed me this diary that he found sitting in the roof of my wife’s room. The letters inside were undoubtedly those of my wife.

The contents were as follows:

– – –

July 15: Today I begin living with my darling. (This is our wedding anniversary).
September 21: I have become who I am for my darling’s sake.
December 9: But still I cannot let him go.
February 23: Soon.
February 29: Do you understand?

– – –

I was so scared that I immediately moved far away.

EXPLANATION

This requires a little detective work, but 1904 was a leap year. The husband found the diary in August of that same year. He married his wife six years earlier (1898), they had children, and then two years earlier (1902) they all died in a shipwreck. The mother’s body was never recovered. The only leap year in the period 1898-1904 is 1904… Meaning the wife wrote the diary two years after she died.

She became who she is for her husband. She couldn’t let him go. Soon. Did he understand? His dead wife had been living in the roof for the last two years, and soon would be making her move for him to join her as well.