The forgotten wife

The funeral was a quiet affair, a stark contrast to the life I'd just left. My husband, David, stood solemn, but I saw the hollow impatience in his eyes, checking his watch.

My death was an inconvenience. They said I was forgotten, a ghost even before I died, especially by my sister Clara, whose theatrical sobs hid dry eyes.

The memory of our 30th anniversary crash ripped through me: the screech of tires, then waking to the truth of David' s affair, messages from his lover filling the phone recovered from the wreckage. This knowledge was poison.

The whispers at my funeral confirmed it all: "She never got over the scandal, forced into marriage." "Clara was the one he always wanted." The shame, the loneliness, the empty decades-they were all mine.