Ok everyone… So, big spoiler: my husband is, indeed, dead. This was something I wasn’t totally sure before, but I am now. For this reason, I don’t think whoever has been living with me is his ghost.
Let’s start from the beginning. In case you hadn’t read my last post, I found a death certificate belonging to my husband… This certificate was dated from 20 years ago. Now, this wouldn’t be weird if… Well, if he hadn’t made breakfast for me this morning. And every single morning for the last 20 years (or so I think, at least).
Since then, I received a lot of advice, so I decided to postpone my plan of escaping and dig into it. No pun intended.
A lot of you asked me if I was sure the death certificate was real. I was mostly sure it was right from the beginning, it even has a punched seal, but I had to make sure.
I looked at it several times. I read through the identity section again and again. It says he was married, which checks out, and has my full name under spouse. It has the right address, right data and so on.
I was listed as the informant of death, which is weird because I don’t recall any of this. At all. No matter how hard I try.
I read forward to see where he was buried. It lists he died at the hospital in Urgent Care, and that he was buried in his parents’ town, at the local cemetery. His parents lived several hours away, so I have no idea how come I don’t recall that trip.
I called the funerary agency listed and asked if they could send me the paperwork related to his funeral, to which they replied it had to be requested in person to verify my identity. Of course, I can’t do it because my “husband” would suspect my absence.
So I took the certificate to the local police station in hopes I could find some more information.
When I entered the station, an officer around my age greeted me, calling me by my last name. “Strange, I don’t know this guy…” I thought. But we live in a small town, so it’s likely he knows me for one reason or another.
I greeted him and gave him a smile, which he returned.
-What can I do for you Mrs. Smith?
I showed him the death certificate and asked if I could see the records that were related to it. The officer looked at me with pain:
-Oh Mrs. Smith… We never caught whoever shot Jim’s car, it’s a cold case, but we can’t disclose the files without an authorization, I’m sorry.
And added
-Man, I do miss Jim… How have you been doing? I see you sometimes but you always seem to ignore me. I believe you’re mad at us for not finding the killer, and I can’t blame you, so I never brought myself to talk to you…
I was dazed. I’ve never talked to this man before. Why the heck is he being so familiar? And what did he mean by missing him? Did they know each other?
And suddenly, his words clicked in my mind.
The killer? What killer? Wasn’t this a car accident?
In panic, I looked at the death certificate in my hand. In the header, surely enough, the cause of death was listed as murder.
How could I have missed this?! I was just so sure of what killed him that I never even looked at the cause.
Exactly how much did I forget? I had to get to the bottom of this. Suddenly, something occurred to me.
-Hey, huh… I’m sorry to ask this. I had a mould situation at home, and the pictures I had of Jim were damaged… Do you have at least one in the file you could give me? That’s all I want. Something to remind me of him…
He looked around to make sure nobody was watching him and shot a quick “wait here”.
He came back with a smile, holding a photo and a newspaper cut-out. As he gave me these, I felt a chill that froze me in place.
The picture he gave me… I don’t know the man in this picture. I have absolutely no recollection of him. I can swear I never saw him. And I can swear he’s in none of the pictures that decorate my house or lay in the family albums.
The picture in the newspaper showed the same man. The same face unknown to me.
I read the article. It was a front page, with a picture of my… Husband? Along with pictures of a car crashed against a tree, with gunshots on the side and windshield. The content was as follows:
Local man shot dead
Jim Smith, a local resident, was shot dead by a passing car, while driving. The car swerved towards a tree and crashed, being later found by a passerby family that called 911. Jim was found still alive and taken to the local hospital, where he ended up passing two days later. Upon arrival, the police officers found the man with a bullet wound on his neck, one on his shoulder and one on his flank, that ended up being the one that caused his death, due to lung injuries. The police is looking for clues and urges anyone who might have witnessed the shooting to come forward.
I could not (and still cannot) make sense of any of this. I’m not sure if whatever I remember is true, or if this is all a big scheme to trick me. A horrible prank? But who would do something like this? I can’t even imagine.
I took a deep breath and read the last phrase, which made me sure I need to find out what’s going on:
“Jim Smith departed in the arms of his wife, Allison Smith, and the couple’s baby daughter, Elisa Smith”