My husband died in what everyone called a tragic accident. I’ve heard those words so many times that they just caught on. The cops said it, my entire family said it, even the local news ran it in that completely detached voice reporters use right before they throw it to weather and sports.
The night we lost him, it was pouring so much that you could barely see the lines on the highway.
Wet roads, low visibility, he lost control. There were no witnesses, so the story about it being just a tragic accident was easy to wrap up.
And I? I just went along with it, because when you are in a state of shock your brain sticks to the explanation that is the easiest to accept. On top of that, there were two pairs of eyes watching my every expression to make sure our world wasn’t falling apart. But it was.
Liam was one of those people who always seem to be incredibly careful, and it wasn’t in a bad way. He would always check to see if the stove was turned off before going to bed, keep money stashed away under the truck manual, and replace his tires well before they started showing wear. If there was heavy rain, he wouldn’t care how angry people got behind the wheel, he slowed down significantly.
Someone like that doesn’t lose control like that without a good reason. I could feel it instantly. Something had gone terribly wrong.
People at the funeral seemed terrified that if they ever let go of my arm, I would disappear. “He loved you so much.” “Constantly spoke about those kids.” “What a great person he was.” And all I did was nod my head until it started hurting.
My sister Grace handled everything because I had become a zombie. She threw the food nobody touched, answered the phone, distracted Ben before he cried, and brushed Ava’s hair, which I completely forgot about.
One time, I was just sitting there staring at Liam’s shoes near the door when everybody was gone wondering why they were still there when he wouldn’t wear them ever again.
Three days later, Liam’s boss called. His tone was unusual right away. Very tight and uncertain. “Emily,” he told me, “Liam left something in the safe for you.” I was about to refuse since I was tired of hearing about what Liam would have wanted, but then I paused.
When I reached his office, everything seemed far too ordinary. There were phones ringing, someone laughing near the copy machine, and the vending machine was chirping. The whole world just kept moving on.
Mark took me to Liam’s office showed me an oversized envelope with my name written on it in Liam’s handwriting. Inside were a bunch of bank statements, pictures, and a sealed letter. I read that letter first.
“Emily, if you are reading this letter, then they have finally gone too far.” And then the line after. “Do not trust Grace.”
I read that line for like five times. Maybe more. The first thing that popped up in my mind was that Liam had to be wrong about Grace. But then, what if he wasn’t?
The I started recalling the past and realized that following my mother’s passing, it was Grace who handled everything, including the funeral arrangements and everything related to my mom’s money and estate. I was too overwhelmed raising the twins and dealing with debt.
I never questioned her. After all, she’s my older sister, and I trusted her with my life. But Liam came across a bunch of weird stuff while doing our taxes. There was money missing from the kids’ account, and there were transfers buried in piles of paperwork. Initially, it wasn’t much, but it got bigger. And maybe it wasn’t too big to trip alarms right away. But it was enough.
I think I must have been shaking pretty badly, since I dropped one of the folders right onto the floor.
Liam mentioned that he waited for some time until he had absolute evidence that he could use against my sister, in case he was wrong about her and broke my heart.
Even though we both faced so many issues at the same time, he tried to protect me from more pain. And there were also pictures. Blurry, horrible pictures of Grace meeting Ryan.
Ryan? The man my sister claimed she left forever ago. Only, it wasn’t true. He disappeared one year ago when he lost all the money on gambling and cheated every single person who ever gave him even a penny.
What followed were printed screenshots of messages Liam got the week before he died. “Drop it.” “Think of your wife and kids.” “Stop digging.”
At the bottom, Liam wrote one final thing. “If Mark hands you this, go to storage unit 214. Look under the toolbox, and don’t tell Grace.”
I drove home completely numb. Grace was in the kitchen, making pancakes and the kids were playing with crayons. Everything seemed so normal that for a split second, I thought I had only imagined seeing that envelope.
She gave me a smile, and I smiled back. I couldn’t believe I let her deceive me for so long.
I didn’t want my kids to spend even a second more with her, so I told her we were getting lunch, and took them to my neighbor’s.
Liam had frozen the kids’ account a week prior and now I was the only one who had access. Grace wasn’t helping me because she cared, she just wanted to check if she still had access to the money.
The storage was filled with dust and was very cold. The toolbox was easy to locate. On it was taped the thumb drive, the envelope and also a tiny voice recorder.
I felt my stomach drop even before I pressed play.
Liam spoke calmly but firmly and almost immediately left me wanting to cry. “You speak with Emily yourself,” he could be heard saying. “You have one week.”
Grace’s sobs could be heard in the background. I had never heard her so scared before. Then came Ryan speaking sharply and angrily. “You stay out of this.”
Then back came Liam speaking louder than before. “Those kids are mine. Their funds stay off limits.”
The recording ended with a few rustles and a bang as the door was slammed shut. I just sat there on the filthy floor of concrete staring at the wall for a long time. Not because I had any doubts. But because I finally understood that Liam knew that he might not live to come back home.
And that instead of scaring the hell out of me, he had calmly arranged for me and the children to cope without him.
It hit me even harder than the funeral ever did. On that particular night, I lured Grace into a trap. I told her that I came across a few financial documents from before that I missed and wanted her to go through them after dinner. She readily agreed. I observed her from the hallway as she opened the folder. Every bit of blood drained from her face.
She pulled out her phone and said, “She found it. Liam made copies.” I entered the room before she could utter another word. She slammed the phone down on the table. All we did was stare at each other in silence.
But she just started coming up with all sorts of excuses for what she did so quickly she was barely making sense. She was helping Ryan out, she was going to put it back, she was panicked, this was never meant to go down like this. And she kept on talking.
But when she finished speaking, I knew the one question that mattered. “Did you tell Ryan that Liam had the proof?” Silence followed my question, but then a small nod.
That was all there was to it.
“He was supposed to just scare him,” she whispered. “Emily, I swear I didn’t mean…”
“Liam is dead.”
She broke down crying. I didn’t cry. Not immediately. I think after being sucker punched like that, your mind waits a second before letting you cry in case you keel over.
Liam’s lawyer knew everything. That part messed with me for weeks. My husband was setting up legal shields for us while acting completely normal at the dinner table.
Eventually, the cops found traffic camera footage that put Ryan right near the crash site that night. It wasn’t an accident.
Grace came around months later, bringing over boxes of Liam’s clothing that she had taken. She looked completely exhausted.
“I just needed something of him,” she said.
I stared straight at her. “You don’t get to miss him when you’re the one responsible for his death.”
She cried, but I couldn’t retract my statement. Some things needed to hurt.
Life became slow. The children threw difficult questions into the air. Once Ava climbed into my bed and asked me, “Did Daddy know we loved him?” I held her tightly. “Yes, every day.”
Sometime after that, I read his last letter to them. In his final goodbye, “Liam had written: If your mother is reading this, she survived. I know she will.”
One year after Liam died, I traveled back to the place of the accident, during a thunderstorm and torrential downpour. In the mud of the ground was a blue washer from his key chain, which Ava had painted.
I am not whole. However, I am still standing, and that is enough.
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Bored Daddy
Love and Peace
