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While I held my own private burning, I was terrified of what the next day would bring. At least Trevor had handled his burial wishes long before he died, so I wouldn’t be stuck picking out caskets and suits for him to be buried in, but a direct cremation just seemed so final and almost brutal in a way. There would be no grave for me to visit and lay flowers on, only a jar of ash.
Face turning red and the smell of campfire weaving its way deep into my hair, I leaned forward and rested my chin in my hands, lost in thought, as the last pieces of my almost-husband that I could reach burned down to ashes.
This was it, the peak that I had been hurtling towards ever since Trevor died. I had looked at myself in the mirror, over and over again, changing my clothes for what felt like dozens of times, trying to find the right thing to see Trevor for our last meeting.
I wavered between wearing something Trevor would have loved and dressing like I was going into battle against the unfairness of it all. The choice was between a lemon yellow sundress that my fiancé had spent many a suntan-lotion scented afternoon peeling off me, or a meticulously tailored black blazer and ankle pants with a crisp linen button-up spotless black Louboutin’s. One made me feel like Trevor’s girl and had memories of our time together in every stitch. The other made me feel powerful, untouchable, and in control.
I went with the suit.
I met with Trevor’s lawyer, a cagey sort of man with a corner office in one of the high-rises in downtown Dallas. He handed me a nearly empty folder, and I sank into a leather chair across from his desk, opening the folder to look through my documents.
“I’m assuming no one else is coming to this will reading?”
The lawyer shook his head. “Only you, ma’am. This shouldn’t take long.”
“Alright.” I sighed. I had been hoping to meet someone, anyone, that knew Trevor beside me, but it looked like it would not work out that way.
He cleared his throat, picking up a pair of reading glasses off his desk and perching them on his nose. “Alright, Miss Rachel Starr, Mr. Trevor Smith has left you all of his worldly possessions. If you flip to the third document in your folder, you can see the list of assets and bank accounts that you now have access to, as well as the temporary access codes. I’d recommend consolidating them into one account.”
I pulled out the paper he was referring to, eyes darting over it, until something stopped me with a jolt. “My name was already on these accounts? And they’re all overseas accounts?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
In disbelief, I brought the paper closer to my face. “It says they are all in my name, as if I am the primary account holder. Why would he do that? Why not have the accounts in his name?”
The lawyer coughed, giving me an uncomfortable glance. “In Mr. Smith’s delicate line of work, it isn’t odd for some assets to be kept under a family member's name, just for safekeeping.”
“I–” I shake my head in disbelief. “I didn’t know they existed. I never gave him permission … and what do you mean ‘his line of work’? He was just an art appraiser.”
“As I said, Miss Starr, it’s my recommendation that you consolidate all these accounts and place them in a new one that you open yourself. If you like, for a nominal fee, we can set you up with a financial advisor–”
“Never mind.” I cut him off, knowing that getting into the implications of multiple overseas accounts would be too much for me in my current state of mind. “I’ll have my own attorney look over all of this later. What else is there?”
“Other than the accounts, there are the titles to his vehicles, and the deed to his house. If you’ll notice, Mr. Smith had already transferred them.”
“Transferred them over to me. I see that.” Concentrating on not letting my hands shake, I replaced all the papers and closed the folder. “Why would he do that weeks before he passed? It doesn’t make any sense.”
I know the lawyer knows more than he is letting on, but he isn’t giving me even a morsel of information. “The only person who knows the answer to that question is unfortunately no longer with us.”
I allowed myself a few seconds to pull it together. The accounts alone were worth millions, but the pieces of the puzzle that was Trevor were falling into place too quickly for me to follow. There had to be a reason he had put all of his worldly belongings into my name, but I’d need more time to figure it out.
I thanked the lawyer for his time, exiting his office with the folder clutched to my chest like a lifeline. There was only one more stop for me, and then all of this would be so much closer to being finished.
Heart in my throat, my engagement ring burning on my finger, I drove to the crematorium.
Whereas the portion of Trevor’s will that noted what was to become of his possessions was shockingly short, since it was all going to me, the second part, where he described his final wishes for what was to become of his remains, was much longer.
Trevor wanted a direct cremation. He wanted it done as soon as possible without autopsy, no wake, or final viewing of the body. My stomach flip-flopped when I saw he had purchased his urn just a few weeks before, but like everything else I was encountering today, I pushed it into the back of my mind, to be dealt with later.
The last line of the will was something I would never forgive him for.
“And finally, my partner Rachel Starr is to witness my cremation to ensure that it is done.”
It was probably wrong to hate a dead man, but as I watched from a windowed room above the cremation furnace as his plain, brown cardboard coffin was wheeled to the door of the furnace, I wanted nothing more than to curse him. It was almost unbearable.
As Trevor has requested in his will, the workers lifted the cardboard lid, and brought it down just a foot or so, so I would know for sure it was my fiancé they were cremating.
It was him, the minor amount of makeup the funeral director had applied not quite covering the burn on his cheeks and forehead. But nevertheless, it was his hair, short and straddling the line between red and brown, his proud nose, and the now-pale lips I had kissed countless times before. It was him, and any small, secret hope I had been harboring about this being some sort of mistake died within me.
