plausible deniability

There was a phone call this morning. I didn't answer it, because both the name and phone number were blocked on the caller ID. The call was picked up by voice mail.

The caller was a company looking for whomever is in charge of Lisa's estate. They gave their company name; I looked up the company and they specialize in collecting debts from the estates of deceased persons.

Well, you know, Lisa died without a will and we weren't legally married. And what estate are they hoping to tap into? Lisa had no savings, no investments, no real property. She had a house in Florida that was abandoned and going into foreclosure, but I had no financial tie to that either.

Therefore I see myself as not in any way culpable for whatever debt today's caller was on about. Plausible deniability: all I was, on a legal level, was her unpaid caretaker.

I would have married Lisa. She didn't want any kind of legal ties. Her divorce was a lot more recent than mine and the pain was still too fresh. We knew that we were together for life, and that was good enough for her.