My Ashes at My Husband's Feet novel · Chapter 1 of 12
Chapter 1: The Call
On the third day of my death, my husband's phone rang.
I heard it ring from the morgue at Darío Contreras Hospital, where I'd been lying in a cold drawer for seventy-two hours.
Being dead is strange.
You don't feel cold or fear.
You just stay stuck to what was yours, like a label.
And the only thing of mine left there, in a clear plastic bag on the desk, was my cell phone.
The morgue attendant, a woman in a blue smock with short nails, was holding the device.
She'd unlocked it with my finger.
That disgusted me. And shamed me.
In my contacts, the first one was "Husband."
I'd put a heart next to it, eight years ago.
I never removed it.
"Hello," the attendant said. "Am I speaking with Mr. Ricardo Bonilla?"
On the other end, soft music played—hotel bar music—and a woman's laugh, close to the microphone.
"Yes, it's me. Who's calling?"
"From Darío Contreras Hospital. We have the body of a woman here, no ID, admitted on Tuesday. Your number was listed as her emergency contact."
"A woman?"
"Mid-thirties, light-skinned, curly hair. A mole on her neck."
There was a short silence.
"What does that have to do with me?"
"This phone is hers. You're listed as her husband."
"Ah."
He said it like that—"ah"—like someone hearing the price of something.
The woman's laugh sounded again, closer.
"We need you to come confirm the body's identity," the attendant said. "It's a mandatory procedure."
"Mandatory today?"
"As soon as possible."
"I'm busy."
"Sir, she's your wife."
"If she's really dead," Ricardo said, and I heard him shift position, heard someone whisper in his ear, "then contact me once the body's already cremated. Why would I go look at anything."
The attendant's mouth fell open.
"Sir—"
"Do what you have to do. Call me after."
He hung up.
I stayed there, bodiless, floating over a plastic bag, not crying.
I can't cry.
But something inside me that no longer existed split in two.
Eight years.
Eight years of dinners waiting for him, of ironed shirts, of engineer's calculations to keep a construction company afloat that carried my last name halfway.
I'd nursed his fevers.
I'd paid off his debt with my inheritance.
And he needed my body to burn before he'd come pick me up.
The attendant set the phone on the table.
She crossed herself.
"May God keep her in His glory, dear," she whispered.
They cremated me the next day.
I didn't feel the fire.
I felt something loosen in me, like when you finally take your shoes off when you get home.
When I looked again, I was inside a cardboard box with a plastic lid, and someone was writing my name on a label with a marker.
Fermin, Lourdes.
Thirty-three years old.
Not one word more.
The phone rang again two hours later.
This time the attendant called from the desk, a piece of paper in her hand.
Ricardo answered on the first ring.
There was the sound of water, of a pool, and in the distance a voice singing.
"What now?"
"Mr. Bonilla, the cremation is ready. You can pick up your wife's ashes."
"Okay, okay. Wait for me."
"We close at five."
"Wait for me, I said."
He hung up without saying goodbye.
They waited.
He arrived at seven ten, shirt unbuttoned, Mercedes keys in his fist.
I watched him walk into the lobby from my box.
He was tanned.
He smelled of chlorine and a woman's perfume.
Behind him, at the door, waited a thin girl with dyed blonde hair, in a summer dress that fit too tight, looking at her phone.
Rebeca Cabral.
His assistant.
I'd known who she was for a year.
I'd always known, and I'd chosen not to know.
"Where do I sign?" Ricardo said.
The attendant set a form in front of him.
He signed without reading.
"Is that all?"
"Your wife," the attendant said.
And she handed him the box with both hands.
Ricardo took it the way you take a pizza.
He weighed it in his hands.
"Weighs little."
"Sir—"
"No, nothing."
He walked out with the box under his arm.
Rebeca opened the Mercedes trunk for him.
He left me in there, between a bag of golf clubs and a case of empty beers, and slammed the lid shut.
I was left in darkness.
I heard the car doors, the engine, the air conditioning.
And her voice, cheerful, as if she were talking about buying cheese.
"And that thing, my love? What are you going to do with that?"
"I don't know. Keep it, I guess."
"Ugh, what a hassle. Just throw it in the Ozama River and be done with it."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend