When Love Became a Crime Scene

When I died, Caroline thought I was just away on another business trip. While I was "away", she brought her first love, Ian Lawson, back to our house. In front of him, the usually touch-averse Caroline actually reached out and hooked her arm through his.

She cooked a candlelit dinner for two and then thoughtfully prepared the guest room for him.

With Ian, Caroline was tender and attentive in ways she was never with me.

The guest room still held traces of me. Ever since we got married, I spent most nights in that room instead of our bedroom.

Maybe seeing my things finally reminded Caroline that I existed. She pulled out her phone and opened our text thread. As she scrolled up, all that could be seen were messages from me, with her occasional one-word replies scattered throughout.

But now, I was silent for five days straight.

Caroline thought for a moment, then started typing with her usual bluntness.

[When did you leave? Couldn't bother to tell me first?]

She sent the message and stared at her phone for a long time. However, I never replied. She had no idea that the message would never be answered.

I was dead, and my body was lying in the morgue at her workplace.

For the rest of the evening, Caroline kept up small talk with Ian, but she checked her phone constantly.

I could not help but wonder if she was actually waiting to hear from me.

Ian noticed her strange behaviour. He rested his head on her shoulder and glanced at her screen. When he saw it was our conversation, he actually scoffed.

Then, he shifted into a soft, pitying voice. "Silly Carol, Luther Powell isn't worth your attention at all. You don't know, do you? I saw him fooling around with another woman last time, so he's probably-"

He stopped there, looking at her with a knowing, suggestive look.

I clenched my fists. If I could, I would have slammed him into the floor.

Did he not know that I was already dead?

How could he move into my house with a straight face and feed Caroline these lies about me?

What shocked me even more was Caroline's reaction. She just frowned slightly, then tossed her phone aside without a care. "Whatever. Let him do what he wants."

A sharp pain pierced through my chest. Of course. I never meant anything to her anyway. She did not care enough to feel even a hint of jealousy or anger.

Ian kept talking, and somehow the conversation turned to Caroline's work. He said he wanted to see her workplace.

Caroline was a forensic pathologist, which meant she worked in autopsy rooms and morgues.

I could not understand why Ian would suddenly want to visit those places, but I knew Caroline would never agree. She had principles and kept her professional and personal lives completely separate. She would never bring her private business to work, especially something as against regulations as bringing an outsider into the autopsy room.

I was her husband, and in all these years, she never once let me through the front doors of the medical examiner's office.

Caroline pressed her lips together and did not respond for a long time.

Just when I thought she was finally going to refuse him, I heard her ask, "Ian, do you really want to go that badly?"

Ian saw his chance and grabbed her hand eagerly. "Carol, I want to know everything about you, and that includes your job."