The cloying, suffocating scent of funeral lilies hung heavy in the stale air of my living room, a sickeningly sweet perfume meant to mask the scent of death. But death was right here, resting on the mahogany fireplace mantle in the form of a pristine white urn. It cradled the fresh ashes of my mother-in-law, Margaret, a woman I had meticulously bathed, fed, and loved for two agonizing decades. Merely three hours ago, I had finalized the cremation paperwork entirely alone and carried her back to this hollow house.
My husband, Mark, knew absolutely nothing.
He was entirely oblivious to the fact that while he fabricated a high-stakes business trip to Boston, his biological mother had drawn her final, rattling breath on a sterile hospital cot. He was equally unaware that I had already finished packing the physical remnants of my life into a single suitcase.
