I didn’t tell anyone about the apartment for almost two weeks. Not my sister. Not even my son. I kept pretending Harold died the man I thought he was because once you say something out loud, it becomes permanent.
Then the woman called me again.
Not asking for money.
Asking if I knew where Harold kept the insurance papers because her little boy needed surgery and the hospital said coverage had lapsed after Harold died.
That was the first time I got angry at HER instead of him.
I drove back to Ashtabula the next morning ready to finally scream at somebody. But when she opened the door, she looked exhausted. Laundry piled everywhere. Half the fridge empty except ketchup packets and juice boxes.
Not some glamorous secret life.
Just another woman who’d been lied to.
She showed me photos afterward because I think she needed proof he loved them too. Birthday parties. Fishing trips. Harold asleep in lawn chairs holding kids I’d never seen before.
Then she handed me something worse.
A Christmas card Harold wrote last December.
“Wish we could spend the holidays together this year.”
Except it wasn’t addressed to her family.
It was addressed to mine.
He’d bought the card and never mailed it.