The Bank Letter That Proved My Wife’s Funeral Was a Lie

I didn’t want to be the villain in my own story.

I stared at her.

—So you killed yourself instead?

Her face twisted.

—No.

—That’s funny, I said,

because I buried you.

Clara sank into a chair and covered her mouth.

Marina looked toward her mother once, then back at me.

—The car crash was real.

The storm that night was real.

But I walked away from the road before anyone came.

I left the car near the cliff.

My purse was inside.

My ring was inside.

The rescue team found the wreck below and assumed I’d gone over with it.

I felt suddenly cold despite the sea air.

—There was no body.

She shook her head.

Five years.

Five years of candles, flowers, anniversaries, and a grave I believed held my wife, and there had never been a body at all.

—I told the police the sea had taken me, Marina said, her voice thinning.

I hid at Owen’s cousin’s place outside town.

Mom identified my things.

The casket was symbolic.

Closed because of the condition of the wreck.

Everyone accepted it.

The name Owen hung there between us like another crime.

—So that was it? I asked.

You erase yourself, let me grieve, let your mother sob over an empty box, and then what? You move on?

Marina’s eyes filled.

—I thought it would be cleaner.

That sentence almost made me choke.

Cleaner.

Not kinder.