Till Death Certificate Do Us Part
My rationalization for starting this whole endeavor was that I am righting a wrong, like any good wife would do.
My eyes snap open, “Where the fuck am I?” It’s dark, really dark. Oh my god, Oh my god! I’m blind! My heart begins beating wildly in my chest as I swing my head from side to side. I turn to my right for the second time and catch a glimpse of dull red numbers on a small digital alarm clock.
“Oh, thank god.” My heart slows, and I realize I’m laying flat on my back in my own bed. Okay, I’m okay. How long have I been sleeping? I lean in closer, squinting to make out the numbers on the clock, “It’s 10 o’clock… at night?” I hear police sirens wailing in the distance. They get louder and louder as they get closer. Why am I scared? I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding once they passed our building, going North up Broadway. The sound recedes slowly until it’s quiet again. I wonder if that’s what woke me up?
I still don’t know why I was sleeping in the first place. I have no memory of going to bed. I stand up slowly and look down. Why am I wearing my clothes? I have on a dark blue crew neck t-shirt from Old Navy and my old Levi’s jeans. I love these jeans, they are perfectly worn in. I’m thinking I must have been too tired to get undressed, and then I notice I have my socks and shoes on too. Wtf?
I see there’s a light on in the hallway. I follow it, walking out of the bedroom and into the dining room/living room. It’s so bright, it takes my eyes a second to adjust. Half of the dining room table is strewn with Legos of multiple shapes and sizes. There’s also a whole bunch that have been separated by color into the three sectioned plastic Tupperware containers I use for packing school lunches.
The other half of the table is cluttered with blue and white papers piled on top of two closed laptops. I think there are two anyway, it’s hard to tell with all the stuff on top. I hear movement around the corner in the galley kitchen. I turn towards the noise and see her walking towards me, pointing an X-Acto knife in one hand, and holding a small case of its refillable razor blades in the other.
Finally! Why does it take so long for a 9 year-old boy to fall asleep? I’m trying to imagine the day my son doesn’t want me to stay in his room until I’m absolutely sure he’s unconscious, but I can’t. At least when Steven was alive we took turns sitting in the tan leather club chair I relegated to a corner in Henry’s room.
Fuck, I always hated that chair. It had the distinction, in my eyes, of being both ugly and uncomfortable. To Steven, it was the first piece of “real” furniture he bought when he moved back to New York after business school. I knew what it meant to be a little sentimental about something; I still had a set of drawers from Pottery Barn in my closet that I bought over 25 years ago.
When we moved in together, I’d hoped he would sell it or give it away, but the club chair was the one thing he wasn’t willing to compromise on. I had already vetoed the 3 foot tall Cartman doll a friend had given him, along with a third of his extensive t-shirt collection. I hadn’t watched South Park, but even if I had, I wasn’t going to waste precious square footage on something that served no practical purpose.
Speaking of something practical, I had just pulled the X-Acto knife and its case of refillable razor blades from the “junk drawer” in the galley kitchen when I thought I heard a noise. I froze mid step and my heart dropped, as it always did, when Henry called me back to his room.
I could usually tell when it was safe to get up and tip toe out, but occasionally he would still be on the edge of consciousness. Once he opened his eyes and realized I was gone, he called out in an ever increasing monotone, “Mom. Mom. MOM!!!!” until I sat back down in the chair for another 20–30 minutes.
I stood completely still and listened. All was quiet.
I let out a quiet sigh, eager to finally get started on my mission. I turned the corner, and walked over to the large rectangular dining room table. You couldn’t see it under the Lego’s and papers, but the top was a solid concrete slab set inside a wooden frame. It was part of a set that came with four padded chairs and a bench that only I would sit on.
Brushing some papers to the side, I put down the knife and the blades, swung one leg over the bench and then the other. Sitting down, I muttered, “Time to get to work.”
The papers had come earlier that day in a thick manilla envelope. I had anxiously slipped my pointer finger under the flap, prying it open right there in the lobby. I couldn’t even wait the 5 minutes it would take to ride the elevator back up to my apartment. I suspected I had fucked up and some crucial information on the papers inside was wrong. I pulled out the top page, frantically scanning the document…. My eyes locked on the section in question. “Fuck,” I swore softly.
For a minute I think she’s going to stab me with the X-Acto knife. I stand there frozen and wide eyed but she walks over to the table without acknowledging me at all. She brushes a bunch of papers to the side, putting down the knife and the blades. I’m about to say something when I notice the block lettering at the top of one of the pages.
DEATH TRANSCRIPT — CERTIFICATE OF DEATH
“Oh, yeah,” I think, as scenes from the last three years pass before my eyes. “That’s interesting. I thought your life only flashes in front of you before you die, not after.”
The minute the numbers came flying out of my mouth I knew they weren’t right. Okay, I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected I might have made a mistake. I was on the phone with the funeral home the night my husband died. I don’t know why my mind went blank for a second when the director asked me for Steven’s social security number.
“Why did I say the first number was zero instead of one? Why didn’t I double check before I got off the phone?”
I was positive I knew it by heart. I had done our taxes for the last 13 years, and filled out all his disability paperwork when he was diagnosed with incurable cancer 3 years ago.
When we created our wills, Steven and I decided to donate our bodies to science. I hadn’t realized until after he died that the funeral home had 24 hours to pick up his body from the hospital and deliver it to the Weill Cornell Anatomy Department.
There had been 10 copies of his death certificate inside the envelope, all of them with the wrong social security number. I’d been told I would need multiple copies to complete the administrative process of death. My first order of business had been collecting Steven’s life insurance money. How could I do that now?
When I finally made it back upstairs to my apartment I did an extensive search online to see how long it would take to get a corrected death certificate mailed to me. Alarm bells went off in my nervous system when I saw it would probably take weeks! It felt like someone was screaming in my ear, “Danger, danger!” and the next thing I know, I’m Googling, “Can you erase printer ink?”
According to several YouTube videos, printer ink can be scraped off with a razor blade. Without missing a beat my thoughts skip forward, “It will be trickier to reprint the correct number once I’ve scraped off the wrong one.”
I watch as she sits down on the bench in her usual spot at the table. I always hated that bench, not good for my back. But, it came with the table, and she loved that concrete top.
She places a copy of the “Certificate”, (that’s what I decide to call it), in front of her, reaches for the X-Acto knife, and removes the protective cover. Then she leans in really close to the table, her eyeball almost touching the paper, and begins scraping the side of the blade across a small section.
After repeating this action a couple more times, she picks up the paper with both hands and holds it up to the light fixture on the ceiling. I follow her gaze and see a pinprick of cool white light shine through a tiny hole. I shrug and think, “I guess she’s got 9 more copies to practice on.”
My rationalization for starting this whole endeavor was that I am righting a wrong, like any good wife would do. I’m not even worried that I’m going to fuck it up because I’ve got 9 copies to practice on. It’s not that I need the money immediately, but I’m thinking if Steven could just disappear from my life in the blink of an eye, why not the cash from his life insurance policy too?
I look at my phone and see it’s already midnight. I’m bleary-eyed, and there are four torn death certificates crumpled on the floor at my feet. It turns out it’s not so easy to scrape off printer ink without cutting through the paper. I didn’t realize I also had to be careful not to disturb any of the watermarks either.
She reaches for her phone again to check the time and I can see it’s 2 o’clock in the morning; now there are 9 mangled certificates on the floor. She’s holding the final copy, smiling as she admires her handiwork. I’m a little surprised she decided to scrape off the social security number in the first place, but not that she was successful. Once she makes up her mind to do something, 9.9 times out of 10, it gets done.
I watch her walk over to my side of the table, but instead of pulling out my chair she sits on the floor opposite the printer. We rarely used it, so it made sense to keep it out of the way. She puts the last scraped Certificate face up in the paper tray and presses the start button. The machine comes to life with a steady hum and then the whir of the cylinder turning as it rolls the printed paper out. She looks pretty pleased with herself, although I can tell by her rapid blinking that her contacts are super uncomfortable.
Instead of sitting back down at the table, or better yet, getting ready for bed, she grabs one of my small glass mixing bowls from a cabinet in the kitchen and fills it with warm water from the faucet. She puts the bowl of water on the dining room table next to the “fixed” Certificate, dips her fingers in, and then flicks droplets all over the paper.
She repeats the action a couple more times, and then shakes her head vigorously, as if clearing her mind of clutter. Her mouth isn’t moving, but I can hear her saying, “I am bereft, and I can’t stop crying,” and then, “I’m smearing tears all over all over,” as she wipes the excess water off the Certificate with a tissue.
I’m staring at her face, but she’s not showing any emotion. She could be holding an old T-Mobile bill for all anyone would know. A minute ticks by before the corners of her mouth turn up into that beautiful toothy grin, the one she used to reserve for me. She gently crumples the paper into a loose ball and then smooths it out flat against the table top.
I think she’s finally going to bed; according to her phone, it’s 3 o’clock in the morning. Instead of getting up from the bench, she leans across the table, grabbing a pack of orange Post-its and a pen from my placemat. I’m looking over her shoulder as she scribbles:
“I’m sorry for the condition of this death certificate. I’ve been very upset about my husband’s death, and this is my only copy.”
She peels off the Post-it, presses it onto the middle of the disheveled Certificate, and folds it into thirds as if it’s a letter to be mailed in a number 10 envelope. I wonder if she’s really going to send that in? Probably not, but my baby’s got balls, I’ll give her that.
