I asked the clerk to read the name again because I thought I had misunderstood her, and she read it slowly, then gave me the address of the facility in Little Rock that had been listed as the place where my son’s remains were handled. I had never heard of the place, and neither had my daughter-in-law, so I drove there the next morning with every paper I had from the funeral. The woman at the desk looked at the permit and immediately asked me why I had it, because the person who signed for my son’s remains had been listed as an authorized representative, and she said that person had been the one who arranged everything after the funeral home released the body. I told her I was his mother, that I had watched them close the casket, and that I had paid for the burial myself. She went quiet and said, “Ma’am, that’s not what our file says.”
She brought out the original transfer record, and there was my son’s full name, his date of birth, and the date of his death, all correct. Then I saw the signature at the bottom. It wasn’t mine, and it wasn’t my husband’s. The woman told me the signature belonged to someone who had presented identification and claimed to be my son’s spouse. I said my son had never been married. She looked at me for a long time and then turned the page toward me, because there was another document attached that hadn’t been included with the county copy. It was a handwritten instruction from the same person asking that no obituary be published, no flowers be sent, and no family member be contacted. At the bottom was a sentence that made my hands start shaking: “His mother must continue believing he is buried there.”
I asked who had brought them the paperwork, and she said the file contained a driver’s license number but that she couldn’t give me any more information without a records request. I filed it before I left, and three weeks later the envelope arrived. The license belonged to a woman I’d never heard of, but the address on it was in the same town where my son had gone missing for six months in 2005 before telling me he’d been working out of state. I sat at my kitchen table with the documents spread around me and finally noticed something I’d missed before. The date on the authorization was May 13th, one day before the anniversary I had been visiting his grave every year. And beside the signature was a phone number. I called it expecting it to be disconnected, but a woman answered on the second ring and said, “I’ve been wondering when you’d finally call.”
