Chapter 4 - MY OWN FUNERAL
Katherine met me at the hospital that afternoon.
She brought a laptop.
Two legal pads.
And a look that told me she had already discovered something.
"Ethan."
She turned the screen toward me.
Rachel's social media page was open.
My photograph filled the screen.
My military portrait.
The same one I had seen face down in my living room.
Above it were the words:
Forever our hero.
My hands went cold.
The post was dated nineteen days earlier.
Rachel had written that I had been killed during an overseas operation.
She described receiving a military notification at the house.
She wrote about collapsing in the kitchen.
She wrote about telling Lily that her father would never come home.
None of it happened.
There were hundreds of comments.
Condolences.
Prayers.
Offers of money.
Someone had created an online memorial fundraiser.
Katherine opened it.
The amount made me stare.
$63,840.
"Rachel organized this?"
"She was listed as the beneficiary."
I couldn't speak.
People had donated because they thought my daughter had lost her father.
Meanwhile, that same child was being punished for crying over me.
Katherine opened another page.
There were pictures from a memorial gathering.
My friends.
Neighbors.
People from Rachel's office.
A framed photograph of me beside flowers.
An American flag folded into a triangle.
I stared at it.
"That's not an official flag presentation."
"No."
Katherine said.
"It appears staged."
Someone had created an imitation military death ceremony.
My wife had watched people mourn me while I was still alive.
Then Katherine opened a picture taken four days later.
Rachel and Brad at a restaurant.
His hand on hers.
Caption:
Learning to live again.
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"Four days."
Katherine closed the laptop.
"Do you know whether she had access to official documents?"
"Some."
"Your Social Security number?"
"Yes."
"Insurance information?"
"Yes."
"Deployment paperwork?"
"Copies."
She wrote something down.
"We're notifying the appropriate investigators."
I looked toward Lily's hospital room.
"Can she take Lily?"
"Not today."
An emergency protective order was already being prepared.
Katherine leaned closer.
"But you need to understand something."
"This is no longer simply a divorce."
I knew.
She pointed at the fundraiser.
"Someone intentionally fabricated the death of an active-duty service member and collected tens of thousands of dollars."
Then she opened one final document.
It was a scanned letter bearing what looked like an official military seal.
It stated that I had been killed in action.
My name.
My rank.
A false date of death.
And at the bottom was a signature.
Katherine zoomed in.
I recognized the name instantly.
It belonged to my commanding officer.
Except he had never signed it.
"Where did you get this?"
I asked.
"Rachel sent it to Lily's school."
I stared at the screen.
Katherine spoke softly.
May you like
"Your wife didn't just tell a lie."
"She built an entire paper trail around your death."
