My distant cousin, who was also living in Baltimore, had a boyfriend, the owner of a failing coffee shop, who, by marrying my cousin, stood to come into quite a bit of money, as my cousin’s father, my distant uncle, was a successful attorney in New York City. They did marry, in a small ceremony, and a few weeks later, the new husband announced that he was going to close up his coffee shop and start an arts non-profit to support the city’s youth, but he’d have to go on a trip to observe similar programs in other cities before he could get the ball rolling. He estimated that a thorough study would take six months of travel—if not a year—and this time would allow him to create an organization more efficient than any similar, one that would produce remarkable results in the quality of living for the next generation of Baltimore’s youth. He left and, after a month, his daily phone calls to his new bride ceased. After six months, she was convinced that she would never see nor hear from him again. She reasoned that he had started a new life and suspected that charity work was not part of it. She did receive a phone call one night from a police officer in Reno, Nevada. Her husband’s blood-stained clothing had been found in a room he had rented on a weekly basis. The clothes were found on the same night that a shooting had been reported in his hotel. The man had not been found, and, several months later, he was presumed murdered and active pursuit of his killer was abandoned, because of lack of evidence. My cousin found his death a relief, but she still had to care for his toddler son, the product of an earlier affair, and a permanent reminder of my cousin’s nuptial misstep. Almost a decade later she saw a curious segment on Entertainment Tonight, which she watched most weekday evenings, about the tragic death of an up-and-coming Hollywood talent agent (he had drowned in the gentle waves off of one of his client’s private beaches), who my cousin identified to be her husband from the montage of close-up photos of him at night clubs and movie premieres that flashed up on her television screen. He had been living in California using his legal name with a ‘Le’ added before his surname. Judging from the abundance of cars, properties, and artworks that he had accumulated, my distant cousin realized that his estate must have been larger than her own and immediately hired a trusted local law firm to represent her in claiming his complete estate to care for her step-son, his offspring.
