I was digging through a dumpster for leftover food when my husband, dead for three years, showed up.
He stepped out of a Rolls-Royce and looked down at me like I was nothing.
"Sweetheart, you passed my test. Just like I knew you would."
I stood there holding a piece of moldy bread.
Staring at him blankly.
It turned out that three years ago, at a college reunion, his ex-girlfriend, the campus beauty queen, had made a proposal:
"I want to see if what you two have is real love.
"Fake your death. Cancel all her cards. Take back the house.
"If she's still faithful to you after three years, you pass. You game?"
He had laughed.
"Why wouldn't I be?
"Mary Fox's crazy about me. Forget three years. She'd wait thirty."
Now he turned and shot a smug look at the woman in the passenger seat.
"What did I tell you?"
The bread crumbled in my fist.
Clement Delgado looked at me. "Alright, I'm here to take you and Camille Delgado home.
"Where's Camille?"
"Dead."
I lifted my eyes. "Three years ago, every card was declined. There was no money for her surgery. She died."
——
Clement went still.
His gaze swept across the landfill.
There was nothing here but the endless stench and me, clutching a fistful of moldy bread.
I loved that child down to the marrow of my bones.
Wherever I went, Camille was always with me.
"Stop joking around."
A flicker of panic crossed his face when he spoke. "I mean it. I'm here to bring you both home."
"Home?"
My eyes burned as I looked up at him. "When you faked your death three years ago, they said you still owed a mountain of debt. They took the house too, said it was collateral.
"Camille and I had nowhere to go. We've been wandering ever since. What home is there to go back to?"
His mouth worked uselessly for a long moment before he managed to speak.
"That... that was just part of the test. Don't worry, the house was always mine. Come on, be good. Tell Camille to stop hiding. Once she comes out, Daddy will apologize."
"Then go ahead."
I hurled a death certificate at his face.
"Go down there and apologize to Camille yourself."
When the paper landed in his hands, his fingers trembled.
"Camille..."
He read the words "sudden cardiac death" and his eyes went red in an instant.
"I was only gone for three years. How can Camille be gone?
"You're lying to me, aren't you?"
Clement seized my shoulders. "I know I was wrong. Stop putting on an act to punish me. Just let Camille come out!"
I just looked at him.
A cold, contemptuous curl of my lips.
The hands gripping me shook.
Clement stared at me, and tears fell from his eyes.
"Clement, you really can't see through something this obvious?"
Mildred Sullivan picked up the death certificate.
"Look. Doesn't it remind you of the one I forged for you three years ago?"
She tapped the section with the official stamp.
"It's not even as good as the one I made for you.
"See here? That's not how they stamp these things."
She let out a scornful laugh and looked at me. "Mary, we've both been through this before. Trying to fool us with something like this? You're bringing a knife to a gunfight."
Clement blinked, and the grief drained from his face.
Mildred kept pointing things out to him.
"See the signature? It's so stiff, how could you not notice? And the paper itself, it's obviously been aged on purpose.
"You went through this whole process three years ago, remember? Mary's actually pretty good at this. She even predicted you'd come find her today. Dressed herself in rags and waited for you in a garbage dump."
"That's a lie!"
My eyes stung with tears.
Clement only frowned.
After examining the death certificate front and back several times, the way he looked at me turned to disgust.
