My Husband Says I Died Three Years Ago
A TaleDale Story · Story concept by Nora Ashwick
The footsteps above us multiplied.
Julian pulled me through a rusted fire door and onto an abandoned platform. We followed the tracks through a service tunnel until cold river air reached us. Behind a wire fence waited an old motorcycle.
“You planned this too?” I asked.
“I plan exits now.”
“Because of me?”
“Because I survived you.”
He gave me the helmet.
The words stayed between my ribs as we rode north. I held his coat because the road demanded it, remembering how easily those same hands had once known him.
We stopped at a shuttered veterinary clinic outside the city. Julian entered through the rear and disarmed a security system. Upstairs was a small apartment containing bottled water, clothes, and a wall covered with photographs.
Most were of me.
Anna Cross leaving a Boston apartment. Anna buying groceries. Anna sitting alone in a church. The dates covered nearly three years.
One photograph showed Anna laughing beside a street musician. Another showed her holding the hand of a little girl outside a school. I searched the child’s face for familiarity and found none.
“Who took these?”
“Private investigators. Three different firms. Whenever one got close, you noticed and disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you approach me yourself?”
“The first investigator did. He spent two weeks in intensive care after someone pushed him down a stairwell.”
“You think I did that?”
“I think he photographed you at the top of the stairs.”
Julian produced the final image. Blond Anna stood above the fallen man, one hand braced against the rail. Her expression was not frightened. She was checking whether he would stand again.
“He couldn’t identify his attacker,” Julian said. “He remembered perfume and a woman saying, ‘Wrong husband.’”
I did not wear perfume. Elena had been allergic to it.
But the borrowed coat from the clinic carried a faint scent of jasmine.
Someone had dressed me in the perfume worn by the attacker—or wanted Julian to believe I was that woman.
“You knew where I was.”
“Sometimes.”
“You told Dr. Bell you didn’t.”
“I told you I didn’t.”
I slapped him.
He did not defend himself.
“You let me live under another name while you married her.”
“I tried to bring you home.”
“When?”
He pointed to a photograph dated eight months earlier. Blond Anna stood beneath an apartment camera, looking directly upward.
“That night. You called me from an unregistered number and asked to meet. When I arrived, you put a knife to my throat and told me Elena Mercer was dead.”
My hand went cold.
“I would remember.”
“You remembered enough to cut me.” He touched the scar on his chin. “Then you disappeared.”
“Why marry Celeste?”
Julian opened a desk drawer and removed a folded letter.
The handwriting was mine.
Julian,
If the lake works, mourn me where everyone can see. If Celeste survives, marry her. Keep her close to Vivian. Let them believe they won. Do not search for me until the third anniversary. If I contact you before then, assume I have forgotten the plan and become dangerous.
I looked up. “This could be forged.”
“You sealed it with our wedding ring.”
He turned the page. My ring had been pressed into dark red wax.
“Why give the ring to Celeste?”
“Because your instructions said she had to become you completely.”
“For my mother?”
“For whoever your mother answers to.”
I wanted to tear the letter apart. Instead, I read the final paragraph.
You will hate me. That may save you. Whatever I tell you later, remember this: Celeste did not steal my face. I gave it to her because one of us needed to die in public.
“Did she die in the car?” I asked.
“No. There was no body in the car—only material from a medical laboratory and your dental crown.”
“Then whose funeral did you hold?”
“Yours. The coffin contained sealed remains supplied by Vivian’s people. She insisted it stay closed.”
“And you never checked?”
“I was following your plan.”
“A convenient excuse.”
“I spent three years married to a woman wearing your face while wondering whether my real wife was alive. Nothing about it was convenient.”
The anger in his voice finally matched mine.
For a moment, I saw the man I remembered: difficult, loyal, wounded by truths he would rather carry than confess.
His phone rang.
Celeste’s name appeared.
Julian answered on speaker.
“Come home,” she said. Her voice sounded exactly like mine on the recorder.
“Did you send someone to the motel?”
“Not for you.”
“Where is Vivian?”
Celeste ignored him. “Elena, if you’re listening, look inside the broken watch.”
I opened the back with my fingernail. A memory card dropped into my palm.
“What’s on it?” I asked.
Celeste began to cry.
“The reason you needed me to have your face,” she said. “And the video of what you did after I agreed.”