At the viewing, I felt emptied out. I had cried until my skin hurt. My sister zipped my dress because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The chapel smelled of flowers and coffee. Soft piano music drifted through the air, too gentle for the weight in my chest.
Greg lay in a navy suit I’d bought for our last anniversary, hands folded neatly, hair smoothed back. He looked peaceful.
I stepped forward with a single red rose, intending to place it in his hands. That’s when I saw it: a small white rectangle tucked beneath his fingers. Someone had put something in his casket—and hadn’t told me.
I slipped the note into my purse and locked myself in the restroom. Unfolding it, I read:
“Even though we could never be together the way we deserved… my kids and I will love you forever.”
My mind froze. Greg and I didn’t have children.
I went straight to the security office. Rewinding footage, I saw her—Susan Miller, the woman from Greg’s office. She slipped her hand beneath his, tucked something in, and patted his chest.
When I confronted her, she whispered: “He didn’t want you to know. They’re his kids.”
The room tilted. My breath caught. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t collapse, so I walked out.
At home, I opened Greg’s journals. Eleven volumes, spanning our years together. Every page, every margin, spoke of us—our jokes, our fights, my migraines, his fear of flying. No other woman.
By the sixth journal, a note appeared:
“Susan pushing again… Lawyer says we’d win. But she has two kids. Don’t want to take food off their table.”
Her kids. Not his.
I called Peter, Greg’s closest friend. He believed me. The next day, Susan admitted it: she had planted the note to hurt me, to make me doubt everything.
I cried again—deep, hollow sobs—but with clarity. My marriage wasn’t a lie. Greg wasn’t perfect, but he was loyal.
That night, I picked up a notebook and began to write—about Greg, the rose, the note, the truth.
Because in his journals, over and over, one line stood out:
“I love her.”
No lie, no betrayal, could ever take that away.