When I leaned over my husband’s body to smooth his hair before the viewing, I found something I had never seen in 42 years of marriage — coordinates tattooed just beneath his hairline. By morning, they would lead me to a storage unit that held a secret he’d kept from me for over three decades.
I am 67 years old. I had been married to Thomas for 42 of those years, and I thought I knew every scar, every freckle, every inch of him. I was wrong. And I didn’t find out until he was gone, when the funeral home gave me some private time to say goodbye before the viewing. The funeral director showed me into the room. “Take all the time you need, ma’am,” he said before closing the door behind him.
The funeral home gave me some private time to say goodbye. Thomas lay there in the navy suit he had worn to Daniel’s graduation. I had picked it out because that had been one of the happiest days of our lives, and I wanted him dressed in something reminiscent of better days.
His hands were folded. His face was still. “They cut it too short,” I murmured, reaching out to touch his hair. “You never wore your hair this short.” I smoothed it back the way I had done thousands of times before. “They cut it too short.” That’s when I saw something just above my late husband’s right ear that wasn’t supposed to be there. It looked like just a faint blur at first, but then I leaned closer.
It was a tattoo. The ink was old, softened with age, slightly blurred at the edges, the way old tattoos go. It hadn’t been done recently. Under the thinning gray hair, now cut just short enough to expose what had always been hidden, were two sets of numbers separated by decimal points. Coordinates.
