Then, despite myself, I laughed.
“You always were selfish.”
I began telling him about everything he had missed: the kitchen faucet that had started leaking, our neighbor’s new dog, and the ridiculous fact that I still expected to hear his key turning in the front door at six every evening.
Talking to an urn felt absurd at first.
Then it stopped feeling absurd.
For a few minutes, I could almost imagine Frank beside me, interrupting whenever I became too sentimental.
Eventually, I lifted the lid.
Inside was a sealed bag containing his ashes.
I carefully raised it from the urn.
Something hard rattled against the ceramic bottom, slipped free, and fell onto the grass.
I looked down.
Frank’s wedding ring.
I knew that band better than I knew most things.
I recognized every scratch and worn edge.
Frank had worn it for forty years.
He used to joke that I was the only person allowed to remove it from his finger.
But Claire had specifically told me he had been cremated wearing it.
I picked it up.
Sunlight struck the inside of the band.
There were words engraved there.
My breath caught.
Frank’s ring had never had an engraving.
I turned it toward the light.
Three words appeared inside.
“DON’T BELIEVE HER.”
I read them once.
Then twice.
Then again.
Her.
Only one woman had been with Frank during those six days overseas.
Claire.
I didn’t call her.
Two days later, I boarded a plane.
As far as Claire knew, I was still at home grieving.
By the time I reached Claire’s street, I had spent the entire flight telling myself there might be an innocent explanation. Maybe the ring had been engraved years ago and I had somehow never noticed. Maybe Frank had meant someone else. Maybe grief was making me suspicious of a woman who had just lost her father. I repeated those possibilities until the taxi stopped. Then I saw Frank’s belongings inside the house, and every comforting explanation began falling apart.
When the taxi stopped outside her house, I nearly told the driver to keep going.
