Read Online Death Benefits by Michael A. Kahn - Free Book Online Page B

divorce.” Her lips quivered.
    I said nothing.
    â€œI’m so ashamed of myself for thinking those thoughts,” she continued, her hands tightening around the teacup. “There I was, worrying only about myself. All that time I had no idea he was in such pain.”
    I reached across the table and placed my hand over hers. We sat there quietly. The only sound was the humming of the air conditioner in the dining room.
    â€œWhat made you think he might want a divorce?” I asked gently.
    â€œOh, nothing in particular.”
    â€œHow about in general?”
    â€œI don’t know. A woman just…” She stopped, head down.
    I waited.
    â€œWe…we hadn’t made…had relations in years,” Dottie said, eyes downcast. “Although it had never been an important part of our marriage, it stopped completely about ten years ago.”
    â€œWhat happened?” I asked softly.
    â€œStoddard had problems with…with his functions.”
    â€œHe became impotent?”
    She nodded. “I thought it was my fault. I know I’m not a beautiful woman, Rachel. I tried to overcome that. I went on a diet. I bought some…some daring undergarments.” A tear rolled slowly down her cheek. “It didn’t help. I encouraged Stoddard to seek medical help. I cut out an article on male problems from Readers’ Digest . I left it on his nightstand. That just made him angrier. He told me it was just a phase and that it would pass.” She sighed, her shoulders sagging. “It never passed. He moved out of our bedroom into his own room down the hall.”
    She looked at me. “My husband and I never slept together again after that, Rachel. I don’t mean just not having relations together. I mean not even sleeping together. Back when we were young, when we were newlyweds, we used to cuddle together, sometimes for hours.” Her eyes had a faraway look. “We were poor as church mice back then, but we had each other. The happiest memories of my life were those winter nights back when Stoddard was in law school. After I finished my lesson plan for the next day and Stoddard finished his homework, we’d just cuddle on the couch together while the wind howled outside.” Her smile seemed to hover there for a moment and then it faded. She glanced at me and then looked down. “Those are old memories. Stoddard and I stopped cuddling many years ago.”
    I gently probed for other observations of her husband, but it became clear they had been strangers for years, leading separate lives under the same roof. She didn’t know about the added life insurance he had purchased four months before his death. She didn’t know what he had been working on during the last weeks of his life. She knew where he went when he traveled, because his secretary would send her his trip itinerary, but she didn’t know why he went where he went. She assumed they were all business trips.
    Although she paid the bills, she knew nothing else about their financial affairs. Whenever the balance in her checking account got low, she would call her husband’s secretary, Nancy, and tell her she needed more money in the checking account. Nancy would ask her how much she needed, and then handle the transfer of the money. Dottie literally had no idea where the money came from. All she knew was that she paid the bills and Stoddard handled all the investment decisions, because “he was a man and knew about those things.”
    â€œDid he leave a note?” I asked.
    â€œHe did,” Dottie said. She stood up. “I’ll get it for you.”
    She left the room and came back a few moments later with a thick manila envelope, out of which she extracted a folded sheet of paper. “This is a photocopy,” she said as she handed the note to me. “The police have the original.”
    â€œWhat else is in the envelope?”
    â€œThese are the papers that the police