My Husband Died in His Mistress’s Apartment but His Family Still Expected Me to Pay

Over the next three days, I learned things I had not known. I learned that Daniel and the woman in the silk blouse, whose name I eventually discovered was Renee, had been together for two and a half years. I learned this not from anyone volunteering the information, but from the things I found when I finally went through his home office. Emails, a shared photo album on a cloud account he had forgotten was still linked to our family iPad, receipts for dinners, weekends, a bracelet I had never seen and never given him. I sat on the floor of that office for a long time.

I also learned that my in laws had known. Not the whole picture maybe, but they had known there was someone. My mother in law had met Renee at a barbecue at my brother in law’s house two summers ago. They had introduced her as a colleague. I remembered that barbecue. I had been working that weekend, a client deadline, and had sent my apologies. I had sent a pasta salad with Daniel and told him to tell everyone I was sorry to miss it. He had come home that evening and told me it was a nice time. Nothing special.

On the fourth day, Renee called my cell phone. I don’t know how she got the number. I answered because I didn’t recognize it. I think we should meet, she said. There are things you should know about what Daniel wanted. I know what Daniel wanted, I said. I was his wife. He talked about changing his beneficiary designations, she said. He talked about it seriously. I think you should know that before you start making decisions about assets. I hung up.

Then I called my attorney. My attorney’s name is Patricia, and she has represented me on contract matters for four years. She is precise and calm, and she does not alarm easily. When I explained the situation to her, she was quiet for a moment. Has anyone filed anything, she asked. Not that I know of. Good. Then we move first. She paused. Did he actually change any designations?

I had already checked. He had not. The life insurance, the retirement accounts, the investment portfolio, everything still listed me as primary beneficiary. Whatever he had talked about wanting to do, he had not done it. He talked, I said. He didn’t act. Then you’re in a strong position, Patricia said. Let’s keep it that way.

The funeral conversation came to a head on a Thursday evening. My mother in law called and told me the deposit for the funeral home was due by Friday. The number she quoted was substantial, more than I had expected, for a service I had not chosen, at a location I had never visited, arranged by people who had spent the last decade treating my financial support of their family as something they were entitled to rather than something I chose to give.

I sat with the phone against my ear, and I thought about the past twelve years. I thought about the mortgage I had carried alone when Daniel’s work dried up the first time. I thought about the month I quietly paid my in laws’ heating bill in January because they called Daniel and told him they were cold, and Daniel came to me, and I wrote the check without comment because that’s what you do for family. I thought about every birthday, every holiday, and every quiet sacrifice I had made for people who were at this exact moment asking me to fund a funeral for a man who had spent two and a half years lying to my face.

I need a few days, I said. The deadline is tomorrow, my mother in law said. Then you’ll need to cover it, and I’ll reimburse you, I said. Silence. You know, we don’t have that kind of money available, she said. I know, I said. I’m sorry. I need a few days.

I hung up and sat in the quiet of my living room, the living room of the house I had purchased, in the neighborhood I had chosen, with the furniture I had picked out and paid for. And I made a decision. Not out of cruelty, not out of anger exactly, though the anger was there underneath, steady and clean. I made it out of clarity. Something had come into focus that had been blurred for a very long time.

I called Patricia again the next morning. I told her I wanted to review everything. The joint accounts, the house title, the car registrations, the credit cards. I wanted to understand exactly what was mine, what was ours, and what was his. I wanted that picture completely clear before I made any further decisions about the funeral or anything else.

She had the summary to me by end of day. The house was in my name. I had insisted on that when we bought it, a small instinct I had never fully examined, but had followed anyway. The joint checking account had about six thousand dollars in it. The savings, substantial, accumulated carefully over ten years, was a solo account in my name. The credit cards were mine. Daniel had been an authorized user on two of them, but the accounts were mine.

I read through the summary twice. Then I removed Daniel’s name from the authorized user accounts. It took about four minutes on the bank’s website. I sat there waiting for something dramatic to happen, some alarm, some resistance. There was none, just a confirmation screen, just a change in a database somewhere. I closed the laptop and went to make coffee.