I couldn’t even speak at first. When I finally did, my voice shook. “Why are you only telling me now?”
“I was busy handling everything,” she replied. “The paperwork, the insurance, the lawyer, the funeral home. I didn’t have time to call.”
Busy. That word cut deeper than anything. I asked where Daniel was, which funeral home, and whether I could see him. That was when she told me he had already been cremated. I felt my blood go cold.
“You cremated him without telling me?”
“I’m his wife,” she said. “I had the legal right. Daniel always said he wanted that.”
I swallowed my anger and asked about my grandson, Owen. She said he was with her and that he was sleeping.
Then she dropped one last thing with the same cruel calm: Daniel had signed a will six months earlier, leaving everything to her. The house, the savings, the car, the life insurance. Everything. “You’re not entitled to anything,” she said.
It wasn’t the money that hurt. It was the way she said it, like she was throwing me out of my own son’s life.