…showed us your ID card. Except the photo didn’t look like you. We took a copy, because it didn’t feel right.”
The crematorium director, Mrs. Fields, emailed me the copy. The woman on the fake ID was my daughter-in-law, Amber, with her hair dyed gray. She’d pretended to be me, “Robert’s wife,” because the crematorium would only release the ashes to the legal spouse.
My son, Tyler, had stood beside her and confirmed it.
The ocean ceremony had never happened. The photographs Tyler sent me were taken from a website selling memorial boat trips. The ashes had been sitting in Amber’s closet for six months, until she decided the silver urn was worth more than what was inside.
I didn’t confront them. I asked a friend to message Amber and agree to buy the urn for $1,200. We arranged to meet in a grocery store parking lot.
My friend went. So did two police officers. When Amber handed over the urn, the officers stepped out of their car.
My husband’s ashes were still inside. Every bit of him.
Amber was charged with identity fraud and theft. Tyler was charged as an accomplice for helping her impersonate me. He cried at my front door that night and said he’d been “overwhelmed.” I told him so was I. I was recovering from surgery and grieving my husband. I still never lied to him.
In June, as soon as my doctor cleared me to travel, I flew to the island where Robert and I spent our honeymoon. My granddaughter, Lily, came with me.
We rented a small boat at sunset. I scattered his ashes myself, exactly where he wanted, in the place he’d always called his harbor. Lily held the urn. Afterward, I kept it. It’s empty now. It sits on my mantel, and every time I look at it, I know he’s home.
