I Married My Husband's Killer

"You're still wearing your wedding ring." Clara glanced down at her left hand and turned the ring gently beneath her thumb. "I know." Her mother watched her for a moment. "Do you ever take it off?" "Sometimes." "When?" Clara smiled faintly. "When I'm alone." Her mother sighed. They were sitting at the kitchen table after dinner, while Clara's father read the newspaper beside them. He had been unusually quiet, but Clara suspected he had been listening to every word. "Three years is a long time, Clara." "I know." "I'm not telling you to forget Daniel." "I know." "You shouldn't feel as though moving on means leaving him behind." Clara looked at her mother. "I'm not trying to replace him." "I know that." Her father finally lowered the newspaper. "Your mother isn't asking you to replace Daniel. She's asking whether you've allowed yourself to think about what comes next." Clara leaned back in her chair. "I have a life." Her mother smiled sadly. "You have a life you know how to manage. That's not quite the same thing." Clara knew where the conversation was heading, and she wasn't interested in going there. "I don't want to talk about meeting anyone." "We don't have to." The answer came so quickly that Clara almost laughed. Her father looked amused. Her mother noticed. "What?" "Nothing." "You're laughing at me." "I'm not." "You are." Her father folded the newspaper again. "She is." Clara laughed properly this time. Her mother shook her head. "Your father is supposed to be on my side." "I am," he said. "I'm just not foolish enough to pretend she's wrong about everything." The conversation eased after that, and Clara was grateful for it. Her parents worried about her, but they had never treated her as though grief had made her helpless. They could push too hard sometimes, but they still knew how to make her laugh. By the time Clara left, the conversation had ended without another argument. On the drive home, she kept thinking about the wedding ring. Her mother had touched it so casually, yet the question had followed Clara out of the house. She had worn it for three years. Not because she believed Daniel was coming back. She knew better. She wore it because taking it off had always felt more final than she was ready for. When Clara stepped into her bedroom that night, the house was silent. She changed and sat on the edge of the bed, looking across at the empty side that had once belonged to Daniel. She had changed almost everything else in the room over the years. The curtains were different, the walls had been repainted, and the old furniture had gradually disappeared. Yet the space beside her still felt familiar in a way that had nothing to do with the room itself. She opened the bedside drawer. Daniel's old wedding ring was inside. Clara picked it up and turned it over in her fingers. He had lost his original ring during their first year of marriage and spent two days convinced someone had stolen it before finding it beneath the driver's seat of his car. She could still remember how pleased he had been with himself when he found it. The memory brought a brief smile to her face. She placed the ring back in the drawer. That was when she noticed the envelope. It had been lying beneath a stack of old receipts, partly hidden by the drawer itself. Clara pulled it out. There was no name on it and no address. The paper was worn, as though it had been handled many times, but she could not remember ever seeing it before. She turned it over. Nothing. Her first instinct was to put it back. Instead, she sat there holding it. Daniel had left very little behind that Clara had not already seen. After his death, she had gone through the things that needed attention and left the rest alone. There had been too much grief in those first months to spend time sorting through every document, every photograph, every forgotten possession. The envelope had probably been there all along. She ran her thumb along the edge. Something about it made her hesitate. Clara almost opened it. Then she stopped. Not tonight. She slid it back beneath the receipts and closed the drawer. When she lay down, she turned instinctively toward Daniel's side before catching herself. Three years had changed many things, but apparently not every habit. Clara stared into the darkness. For the first time in a long while, she found herself wondering whether there were things about Daniel she had never known. The thought followed her into sleep.