Dead Wife Walking Chapter 08

Dead Wife Walking Chapter 08

Serena was arrested on a Wednesday.

I know this because Ethan was sitting in my bedroom – he’d started sleeping there, on that thin mattress, as if proximity to my ghost could substitute for proximity to me when I was alive – when Mark called with the

news.

“She’s claiming you were complicit,” Mark warned. “Her lawyers are building a defense that positions you as a co-conspirator who’s now scapegoating her to protect the Blackwell brand.”

Ethan’s response was immediate and cold. “Release everything. Every piece of evidence Vivian compiled. Every email, every transaction, every recording. All of it. Hold nothing back.”

“Sir, some of those recordings contain… personal content. Your conversations with Serena. They won’t paint you favorably.”

“I don’t care.”

Mark paused. “Vivian would have cared. She specifically separated the Foundation evidence from the personal material. She was protecting your reputation even while exposing Serena.”

Ethan closed his eyes. ‘Of course she was, I could almost hear him thinking. Even from the grave, I was still cleaning up after him.

“Release the Foundation evidence only,” he said finally. “Respect her

judgment.”

That surprised me. It was the first time he’d deferred to my decision about

anything.

Serena’s arrest was messy and public. Cameras caught her being escorted

from her luxury apartment in handcuffs, mascara streaming down her face,

screaming Ethan’s name.

But the moment that broke the internet was what came next.

A reporter shoved a microphone in her face. “Ms. Lane, do you have any response to the allegations that your actions directly contributed to the death

of Vivian Blackwell?”

Serena’s composure cracked like glass. “Her death had nothing to do with

me! She was sick! That’s not my fault!”

“Records show that Mrs. Blackwell couldn’t afford her cancer treatment

because household funds were severely limited while you had unrestricted access to Mr. Blackwell’s finances. Do you-”

“She was a nobody!” Serena shrieked, all pretense gone. “A charity case the old woman dragged in off the street! She should’ve been grateful for what she

had!”

The clip went viral within minutes. Forty million views in the first twelve

hours.

I watched it from over Ethan’s shoulder as he sat frozen at his desk.

Serena’s words – *a nobody, a charity case* – hung in the air like poison.

And I saw the moment he realized: those were his words too. Not spoken so

crudely, but the sentiment was the same. Every time he dismissed me, every time he treated me as less than, he’d been saying exactly what Serena had just said to forty million people.

The difference was that Serena said it to a camera.

He’d said it to my face. For three years.

His phone rang. Eleanor.

“Grandmother.”

“I saw the news.” Her voice was thin but steady. “That woman said what you

were always thinking. The only difference is she was honest about it.”

“That’s not-”

“Don’t lie to me, Ethan. I’m ninety-one. I don’t have time for lies.” A long, rattling breath. “I called because Dr. Huang informed me about the pill schedule. Vivian had been managing my medication for over a year. Did you know that the pharmacy error she caught could have caused a fatal

interaction?”

“I read her notes.”

“She saved my life, Ethan. Quietly. Without telling anyone. While she was dying.” Eleanor’s voice finally broke. “What did you ever do for her?”

He had no answer.

“I’m tired,” Eleanor whispered. “Don’t call me for a while.”

The line went dead.

Ethan set the phone down and stared at the wall. Then he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out my journal – he carried it everywhere now, like a

talisman.

He opened it to a page he’d dog-eared.

*”April 2nd. I think I understand now why he can’t love me. It’s not that I’m unlovable. It’s that he’s afraid. He builds walls so high that even he can’t see over them. Serena doesn’t challenge those walls – she decorates them. I keep trying to tear them down, and he punishes me for it.*

–

*”Maybe love isn’t supposed to be this hard. But then again, I’ve never known

the easy kind.”*

He pressed the journal to his chest and sat in silence for a very long time.

I watched him and felt something I didn’t want to feel – a fracture in my

anger, hairline-thin, letting in a sliver of something dangerously close to grief.

Not for myself. For the man he could have been, if he hadn’t been so

determined to destroy everything soft inside him.

‘You were worth loving, Ethan, I thought reluctantly. ‘You just made it

impossible.’

That night, Ethan did something I never expected.

He went to the Blackwell family mausoleum, where my ashes had been placed – Eleanor had insisted on it, overriding Ethan’s original plan for a

generic cemetery plot.

It was past midnight. Rain hammered the marble steps. He hadn’t brought an umbrella – the man who owned fourteen custom-tailored overcoats stood

in the downpour like a penitent.

He knelt in front of my plaque. The inscription read: *Vivian Blackwell.

Beloved. 1995-2025.*

“Beloved,” he murmured bitterly. “Who are we kidding?”

He placed something on the ledge below my name. A small bouquet.

Sunflowers.

‘You remembered, I thought, genuinely startled.

“You said these were your favorites.” His voice was barely audible above the

rain. “I told you they were tacky. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for that and for a thousand

other things I can’t take back.”

He sat on the wet marble, leaning against the wall of the mausoleum, and

talked to me. For hours. About everything and nothing. About the first time he

–

saw me – at Eleanor’s garden party, in a yellow dress, laughing at something

his grandmother said. About how he’d thought I was beautiful and

immediately buried the thought because beauty was a vulnerability he couldn’t

afford.

About how he’d heard me singing in the kitchen once, late at night, when I

thought I was alone. How he’d stood in the hallway and listened until the song

ended and then walked away without saying a word.

About how every time I texted him good morning, he read it. Every single

time. He just never replied because replying meant acknowledging that someone cared about him, and that terrified him more than any boardroom

battle ever could.

I sat beside him on the cold marble, my knees pulled to my chest.

‘You’re telling me this now?’ I thought. ‘Now, when I can’t feel the rain, can’t

feel your warmth, can’t feel anything?’

“I loved you,” he whispered. “I think I loved you the whole time. I just didn’t

know it until you were gone.”

The rain kept falling.

And for the first time since my death, I cried. Not tears – ghosts don’t have

those. But something inside me cracked open, and all the grief I’d been holding

flooded out in a silent, invisible wave.

‘It doesn’t matter anymore, Ethan’

But oh, how I wished it did.