A wood-burning stove I hauled home for eighty dollars from a farm estate sale outside Topeka, Kansas, in the fall of 2018 turned out to be the strangest purchase of my life.

At the time, I thought I’d bought a pile of scrap iron.

Nothing more.

The stove was a monster.

Cast iron.

Six hundred pounds if it weighed an ounce.

The glass in the door was cracked.

The enamel had chipped down to bare black metal.

The handle rattled.

The inside looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since Ronald Reagan was president.

But I lived alone in a little cabin outside Council Grove, and I heated with wood.

If I could rebuild the thing, it’d save me money.

The auctioneer practically laughed when I bid.

“Eighty bucks?”

He shrugged.

“Sold.”

Then he leaned over.

“You’re paying too much.”

I grinned.

“My specialty.”

The old farmer who’d owned the place had died earlier that year.

Harold Jensen.

Eighty-nine years old.

His children had flown in from all over and wanted everything gone.

Tools.

Tractors.

Furniture.

Boxes of photographs.

All of it.

According to the auctioneer, the stove hadn’t been used in years.

“Full of ash and mouse nests.”

That was enough for me.

I loaded it up with the help of two neighbors and forgot about it until November.

Kansas winters don’t care whether you’re ready.

By Thanksgiving, I needed heat.

So I dragged the stove into my workshop and started cleaning.

Bucket after bucket of ash.

Dust everywhere.

Cobwebs.

Mouse droppings.

Thirty years of neglect.

Then my shovel hit something solid.

Clang.

I frowned.

The grate should’ve been empty.

I reached down.

Something wrapped in old aluminum foil sat tucked into the far back corner where no firewood would’ve ever touched it.

Not accidentally.

Deliberately.

Whoever put it there had wanted it hidden.

I brushed away the ash.

A small metal box.

Rusty.

About the size of a cigar box.

I sat cross-legged on the floor.

Opened the lid.

And immediately felt cold all over.

Not because of money.

Not because of jewels.

Because lying on top was a photograph.

And I recognized the woman in it.

My mother.

Twenty-three years old.

Smiling.

Standing beside a young man I’d never seen before.