Honestly, part of me wanted to be alone with my mom’s memory anyway.
I spent three consecutive weekends in that house, slowly boxing up the living room, the kitchen, and the guest rooms. Every item held a memory.

It was exhausting, emotional work. Finally, I had to tackle her bedroom. This was the hardest part. Her scent still lingered in the air, a faint mix of lavender and old paper.

I was on my hands and knees, clearing out the dusty space under her heavy oak bed frame, when my hand hit something cold and hard. I pulled it out. It was a heavy, dark grey metal lockbox. I recognized it instantly. When I was a kid, she used to keep our birth certificates and some of my dad’s old keepsakes in it. I hadn’t seen it in over a decade.

It was locked. I spent twenty minutes tearing the room apart looking for the key before I finally found it taped discreetly to the back of her bedside nightstand. I sat cross-legged on the floor, the dust motes dancing in the afternoon light filtering through the blinds, and fitted the small brass key into the lock. I fully expected to find old jewelry, maybe some savings bonds, or sentimental letters.

The lock clicked. I lifted the lid.
There was no jewelry. There were no sentimental letters.
Sitting right on top was a manila folder with Elena’s name written on the tab in my mother’s neat, cursive handwriting. My brow furrowed in confusion. Why would my mom have a file on my wife?
I opened the folder, and my blood instantly ran cold.
Inside was a thick stack of printed emails, bank statements, and glossy photographs. The first document was a background check.

A highly detailed, professional investigator’s report. As my eyes scanned the pages, my heart started hammering in my chest.

Elena wasn’t who she said she was.
The background check revealed that her real name wasn’t Elena. The charming story she told me about growing up an only child in Oregon with deceased parents was a complete fabrication. She had a different legal name, a string of previous addresses across three different states, and worst of all, an extensive history of civil lawsuits for financial fraud.