“We haven’t even buried her yet and you’re already dividing up her things,” I heard my mother say as I woke up inside my own coffin.
I did not open my eyes immediately. First, I smelled the heavy, sweet scent of lilies, then my tongue went completely dry, my back stiffened, and a deep ringing started in my ears. I tried to move my fingers, but they barely responded to my brain. On my chest lay a heavy silver cross that I did not remember ever having touched.
It took me several terrifying seconds to understand where I was lying.
It was my mother’s living room in Milwaukee. I recognized the slow ticking of the old mahogany clock, the cream-colored lace curtains, and the folding plastic chairs we always brought out for holiday gatherings. Only that morning there was no birthday or family dinner. There were scented candles, reheated dark coffee, older women praying in low whispers, and a framed photograph of me surrounded by fresh white blossoms.
They were holding a wake for me.
The last thing I remembered was the night before. My younger sister Chloe had arrived with a mug of warm milk with cinnamon because, according to her gentle voice, I looked utterly exhausted. Later that night, I had a sharp argument with my husband, Christopher, about an unauthorized wire transfer of 42,000 dollars I discovered in our online checking account. He swore on his life that it was just a routine business payment. I asked him to show me the bank receipt right then.
Then I was overcome by an unbearable, unnatural sleepiness.
And now I was lying inside a velvet-lined casket.
Then I heard Christopher speaking right outside the box.
“Gwen, please do not worry,” Christopher said softly. “Madelyn told me many times that if anything ever happened to her, she wanted Chloe to have this beautiful piece.”
Through the crack in the wood, I saw his pale hand reaching down. He was holding the fine gold chain with a heart pendant that my grandmother had given me when I turned fifteen.
My mother replied, her voice breaking into heavy sobs: “She never took that necklace off, not even when she went to sleep.”
“That is precisely why I am giving it to her,” Christopher insisted. “I really do not want something so meaningful to end up stored away in a dark drawer.”
I watched through the crack as he walked over to Chloe. My sister lowered her head, but it was not out of grief or shame, it was out of nervous anxiety. Christopher carefully fastened my gold chain around her neck.
I felt such a surge of burning rage that for a moment I forgot my entire body was paralyzed.
“What if someone asks about the necklace?” Chloe whispered softly.
“Nobody is going to ask any questions at all,” Christopher murmured back. “The death certificate is already taken care of. The insurance money will be released as soon as the paperwork goes through, and selling the house will be much easier if we move quickly.”
My breathing became shallow and rapid.
“Yesterday I was so terrified he would notice the strange taste in the mug,” Chloe whispered, clutching the pendant.
Christopher let out a cold, dry laugh. “I told you exactly how much of the pills to mix into the liquid, and she fell fast asleep in less than ten minutes.”
I wanted to scream with all the power in my lungs, but I simply could not make a sound. I only managed to twitch a single finger under the stiff fabric of the blue dress they had dressed me in. I heard my aunts murmuring prayers for my eternal rest while a neighbor asked what time the funeral hearse would depart for the cemetery. Every single word felt like another heavy shovelful of cold dirt falling on my chest. If no one noticed I was still alive right now, they would bury me under six feet of earth before the sun went down.
At that exact moment, I heard tiny, uneven footsteps approaching the wooden box. It was Mason, Chloe’s seven-year-old son, holding a half-eaten chocolate cookie. He waddled closer and peered directly through the narrow crack of the open casket.
