The name was a woman I’d never heard of. I called the county and asked whether she had actually appeared in person when the affidavit was filed. The clerk said no, but the affidavit had been notarized and included a copy of a marriage license from 1974. I asked where the marriage had taken place. The county was two hours away, and the bride’s name was the same woman listed on the new death certificate. I told the clerk my husband had always said he’d never been married before me. She said the affidavit claimed they had separated in 1978 but had never legally divorced. I sat there staring at the page because if that was true, I’d spent forty-seven years believing I was his wife.
I called the courthouse where the supposed marriage happened and asked for the original license. There it was: my husband’s name, his birthday, and a signature that looked exactly like his. The bride’s signature was there too. I asked whether there was a divorce record. The clerk searched twice and said there wasn’t one under either name. Then she found something else: a property transfer filed in 1980, signed by both of them. The address was our house. I told her we’d bought that property together in 1989. She said the earlier document showed my husband had acquired it from his first wife nine years before I ever met him.
I drove home and pulled every deed and mortgage document from the safe. The first deed I found was from 1989, exactly as I remembered — but my husband hadn’t bought the house from the seller listed on our paperwork. He’d bought it from the woman on the death certificate. I called her number from the affidavit. An older woman answered, and when I gave my husband’s name, she went completely silent. Then she said she’d been waiting for someone from his family to call. I asked why she had changed his death certificate. She said she hadn’t changed anything.
“I didn’t file it,” she said. “Your husband did — six months before he died.”
