Over the next three days, I learned things I had not known.
I learned that Daniel and the woman in the silk blouse, whose name I eventually discovered was Renee, had been together for 2 and 1/2 years.
I learned this not from anyone volunteering the information, but from the things I found when I finally went through his home office.
Emails, a shared photo album on a cloud account he had forgotten was still linked to our family iPad, receipts for dinners, weekends, a bracelet I had never seen and never given him.
I sat on the floor of that office for a long time.
I also learned that my in-laws had known.
Not the whole picture maybe, but they had known there was someone.
My mother-in-law had met Renee at a barbecue at my brother-in-law’s house two summers ago.
They had introduced her as a colleague.
I remembered that barbecue.
I had been working that weekend, a client deadline, and had sent my apologies.
I had sent a pasta salad with Daniel and told him to tell everyone I was sorry to miss it.
He had come home that evening and told me it was a nice time.
Nothing special.
On the fourth day, Renee called my cell phone.
I don’t know how she got the number.
I answered because I didn’t recognize it.
“I think we should meet,” she said. “There are things you should know about what Daniel wanted.”
“I know what Daniel wanted,” I said. “I was his wife.”
“He talked about changing his beneficiary designations,” she said. “He talked about it seriously. I think you should know that before you start making decisions about assets.”
I hung up.
