Husband Faked Death, I Aborted and Cancelled His Registration

01

The year I turned twenty-eight, I got pregnant, and my husband died in a car accident.

The night we buried him, my in-laws sat me down with the funeral ledger to split the accounts.

You and Wilfred Acevedo were married four years, no kids. The house goes to you. The funeral money was paid for with Willie's life, so we're keeping it for our old age.

"You're young. There's no way you'll stay a widow for Willie, and we won't make things hard for you. You can leave whenever you want."

My tears weren't even dry, my throat parched and burning, and I watched the kind faces of my in-laws turn ugly.

I said nothing. I only pressed my hand hard against my belly.

From the moment Wilfred was declared dead, right up until a minute ago, I had planned to keep this child.

But now it seemed there was no point.

...

Before I'd even finished taking in what my mother-in-law had said, my sister-in-law shoved my luggage out at me.

"They say a woman only marries into a family because of her husband. My brother's gone now, so I don't imagine you'll want to stick around here."

I looked at Norma Acevedo through my tears, remembering how, since the day I'd walked into this family, I had always treated her decently.

Now I'd gotten a full taste of how cold every one of them could be.

I didn't take the suitcase. Instead I threw my mother-in-law's own words back to shut Norma up.

"Mom just said it. The house is mine."

My voice came out hoarse, my throat searing with every word.

Norma faltered, and just as she was about to square off with me, my mother-in-law, Angela Finch, grabbed her arm.

"Don't fight her over it. The mortgage isn't even paid off. Let her have it."

Norma dropped her sure-of-herself posture, shot me a look, and kicked my suitcase sideways on her way past.

"Fine. We're leaving."

She hooked her arm through Angela's and swaggered out.

My father-in-law, Theodore Acevedo, glanced at me one more time before he left.

The moment the door shut, my world finally went quiet.

I lifted my eyes to Wilfred's memorial photo on the wall and gave a bitter smile.

"See that, Wilfred? That's your family."

I wiped my eyes and stood. His own family wasn't grieving anymore, so there was no reason for me, an outsider, to keep breaking my heart.

I was lying on the couch crying when the phone rang. It was Angela. I answered.

Only after I hung up did I get up from the couch.

I went into the bedroom and took out the property deed.

That's right. The deed to this very house, the one Angela had just said still had a mortgage to pay.

It used to. But last month I paid the balance off early.

Angela didn't know that. The two-thousand-plus-square-foot floor she hadn't wanted was mine now.

I knew I couldn't hide it for long. I had to get this house sold as fast as I could.

I found an agent, sent over the actual photos of the place, and told them to sell it quickly.

Then there was something more important to do. Go to the hospital.

I stroked my belly, looking at Wilfred's photo, and still couldn't stop the tears.

"I never told you, did I, Wilfred? I'm pregnant. I'm carrying our baby."

"From the day of the accident until I laid you in the ground, all I could think was that I wanted to keep this child. It's the only part of you left."

"But I don't want to keep it now. You heard them just now. I'm not the one leaving. Your mother, your sister, they drove me out."

By the time I'd said it all I was sobbing beyond words. It wasn't that Wilfred and I had never loved each other. But things had come this far, and what choice did I have left?

I didn't linger in the house. Once I left, I went straight to the hospital to book the abortion.

When I saw that tiny black cluster on the ultrasound, I signed the papers through my tears.

Sitting outside the operating room, waiting, I couldn't keep my hands from shaking. It would be a lie to say I wasn't afraid.

I scrolled through my contacts and couldn't find a single person to come sit with me.

Then my eyes passed over Nelson Shepherd's name, and I stopped.

02

Nelson Shepherd worked at my company. I'd saved his number and never once used it.

The reason I wanted to call him now was the cash gift I'd found under his name in Wilfred's funeral book.

And it wasn't small. Twenty thousand dollars.

Nelson had no relationship with Wilfred. That money was meant for me.

I hesitated for a moment, and as I watched my turn for the procedure come up, my hand shook and somehow dialed his number.

Just as I was about to hang up, he answered.

"Hello, Ms. Henson..."

"Yes. Can you come to the hospital?"

The words got ahead of me, and just like that I'd said what I was thinking.

The moment it was out I regretted it. Nelson and I weren't close.

"Okay. Send me the address."

I hadn't expected him to agree so easily.

After I hung up, I hesitated, then sent it anyway.

I really hadn't thought he'd get there before I went in.

When he came running up to me, he was out of breath, beads of sweat still on his forehead.

"Ms. Henson, what's wrong?"

Nelson was a few years younger than me. We had no dealings normally, so why had he paid twenty thousand after Wilfred died?

And why had he rushed straight to the hospital to see me?

"Just a minor procedure."

The questions were cut off by the voice calling me in.

I turned and walked toward the room, Nelson following beside me, not knowing what to do with himself.

Inside, I was clear-headed at first, then slowly went hazy and lost consciousness.

When I opened my eyes again, he was already standing at my side.

He didn't ask anything, didn't say anything, just stayed with me quietly.

I rested at the hospital for a while before leaving, and he stayed with me the whole time, all the way back to the house I was living in now.

"I got scared because of the procedure. That's why I called you. Thank you."

He waved his hands quickly. "Don't mention it. Get some rest, Ms. Henson."

He was still stiff around me, probably because I ranked above him at the company.

Before he left, he cooked me some porridge, and as I ate it I couldn't stop the tears.

I rested at home for two days, then went back to work.

The moment I walked in, everyone looked at me with pity. Among my coworkers I spotted Nelson, and there was more concern in his eyes than in anyone else's.

When I got to my office, I saw the layoff list.

This decision was one I'd already known about before Wilfred's accident, so it was no surprise.

Opening the list, I found six names on it: people who never put any effort into their work and made a spectacle of themselves all day long.

I took out my pen to sign, then stopped short as Nelson's name flashed into my head.

As the idea rose, I called the HR manager.

It didn't take long before he handed me a new layoff list.

This time there was one more name on it. Nelson's.

Manager Lambert glanced at me a few times, like he wanted to leave but had something to say.

"Manager Lambert, if you have something to say, say it."

I asked without looking up, and that seemed to give him the nerve to speak.

"Ms. Henson, everyone else is a known slacker. Letting them go is one thing. But Nelson's honest, and he works hard. If we cut him, it'll be hard to satisfy people, and he'll probably take it badly himself."

What he said was true enough, but the company's decisions were mine to make.

"The fact that he tried to bribe me should be reason enough, don't you think?"

I looked up at Manager Lambert, and this time there was nothing he could say against it. He could only nod and leave.

I signed the layoff list quickly.

03

When the layoff list went up in the company group chat, it caused an uproar, of course. The main reason for the uproar was Nelson.

That was why my partner, Jean Whitney, came looking for me.

"Evelyn, I know you just lost Wilfred and you're upset, but you can't take it out on an innocent employee."

"He tried to bribe me." I stuck to that reason without lifting my head.

I didn't want to spend even one more look on Jean right now, never mind that she used to be my best friend and we'd built the e-commerce company together.

"Evelyn, Nelson made top monthly sales in only three months here. He's the future of the sales team, you can't"

"You said it yourself. Wilfred just died and I'm not in a good mood. This is the only thing that makes me feel a little better."

I raised my eyes to Jean. Her face had gone dark and flushed, the way it did when she was angry past the point of holding it in.

After I said that, she opened her mouth and only got out one line. "Fine. Do whatever you want."

Then she left my office.

I didn't feel guilty about it. I thought it was exactly what I should be doing.

I'd assumed Nelson would be the one most likely to come find me after the list went out, but he never showed up.

That did surprise me a little.

There was nothing else for me to handle at the office, so once I'd signed off on the layoff list, I went home.

Wilfred's funeral had been taken care of, but there was still a string of paperwork to deal with.

I planned to take the household register today and go cancel his records. On my way out of the company, I ran into Jean again.

Face to face with her now, I felt there was nothing left to say.

She, though, walked over to greet me as if nothing were wrong. "Evelyn, if you're not feeling up to it, you don't have to come in to work"

"I'll still come in. But right now I have something to take care of."

"What is it?" Jean pressed at once.

"Something to do with Wilfred."

Jean frowned. "What about Wilfred? Weren't his funeral arrangements all finished?"

Seeing how anxiously she pressed, I only tugged at my lips. "Something very important to Wilfred."

I said it a little heavily, on purpose, and panic swept over Jean's face.

Jean's reaction was no surprise at all, because she worried about Wilfred more than I did, and I was his wife.

Jean and I were college classmates. Back then we shared the same interests, and when we graduated we chose to start a business together. That was how Clearskies E-Commerce came to be.

Wilfred and I were high school classmates. We reconnected in my sophomore year and started dating.

I did three things at once, starting the company, graduating, and getting married. After marrying at twenty-four, I stayed buried in work and never rushed to have a child.

Wilfred and I had a decent relationship. Even when his parents wanted to split up the family assets after his death, my feelings for him were still there.

Until that day, after Norma and Angela left, Angela's phone dialed me by accident.

I thought they needed something, so I answered, and once it connected I heard Norma's angry voice.

"Just handing my brother's house over to her like that, I really can't stand it. At least the company's still in Jean's hands, and since Jean's going to marry my brother anyway, the company's basically his."

"That's enough, don't talk about this here. We can only relax once your brother and Jean have the company in hand. Hurry home. Your brother still hasn't even had anything to eat."

After that came the sound of them getting in the car and driving off. I gripped the phone tight and never hung up.

From their conversation I picked out two things. One, Wilfred and Jean were having an affair. Two, Wilfred wasn't dead.

Fine. Since they went to all this trouble weaving a story like this, I'd have to play along with them properly.

04

To make sure Wilfred really wasn't dead, I kept the call connected the whole way, and only hung up once they got home and I heard his voice.

That kind of betrayal cut into me like a slow knife, so I made up my mind, sold the house, and went to the hospital.

Now I was going to cancel Wilfred's official records. Let's see how a man who was still alive planned to come back to life.

When Jean heard me say it was something important about Wilfred, she was straining to work out what it was. But I wasn't going to give her the chance.

Their double betrayal had drawn the devil in me all the way out.

I walked past Jean and kept going. She grabbed my arm. "Evelyn, tell me straight. What are you going to go do?"

I turned my head and met her eyes. Her frantic little act was honestly funny.

"What? Are you that interested in my dead husband?"

Before I'd overheard Norma and Angela talking, I'd never suspected them.

One was my closest friend and the business partner I clicked with best; the other was a husband who did whatever I wanted and treated me like the center of his world. It never once crossed my mind that the two of them would end up together.

I still remembered Jean back when she first started college. She was timid, had no real friends, and I was the one who never looked down on her, who befriended her, who pulled her out of the mud step by step.

After we graduated, Jean fell into a panic again. She had no idea what she could do with herself, and she came to me in tears.

By then I'd already decided to start my own company. Seeing how stuck she was, I told her my plan.

Jean got excited the moment she heard it. She said she could only put in twenty thousand dollars. I could have waved that money off, honestly, but I took it.

We became partners, and to give her something to work toward, I registered her as the legal representative.

Back then Jean told me she'd remember what I'd done for her forever.

I never imagined that in four or five short years, she'd forget every word of that promise.

On Wilfred's side I really hadn't caught anything off. But two months ago I'd noticed Jean acting strange. She used to be intensely into the work, careful, responsible.

Two months ago she was often out of the office, unreachable at the worst moments. At the time I thought something had happened with her family, and I asked her a few times. She only said she was almost done dealing with it.

Looking back now, maybe that was when the two of them were already planning everything that happened today.

Through Jean I felt, in full, what it was to be knifed in the back.

When I threw that question back at her, Jean froze for a second, then quickly pulled her expression back together and shook her head.

"Evie, I know you've been in a rough place lately. If you want to rest, I'll set up a vacation for you. If you want to come in and work, that's fine too. As long as it lifts your mood."

I genuinely wondered what was really going through Jean's head while she said all this.

I just gave a cold little laugh and didn't answer her.

I got in the car, left the company, and drove straight to the records office at the police station.

"Hi, I'm here to cancel my husband Wilfred Acevedo's official records."

I handed the clerk the documents I'd brought and stated what I'd come for.

I watched the clerk pull up Wilfred's file, print out a confirmation form, and hand it to me to sign.

I turned everything over to the clerk. He typed the information in, keys clacking, then had me enter it once more to confirm.

I watched him work through it.

Just then a rush of messy footsteps came up behind me. "Evelyn, what do you think you're doing?"