The Price of Grief
Mom pressed a check for $1,900 into my palm right in front of Dad’s casket, whispering that it was my full share. My brother Kyle smirked like the deal was done while Mom held out a waiver for me to sign. They didn’t know I was carrying an envelope Dad made me promise to open only when they tried to push me out.
My name is Taylor Martin, and I had been standing in the Henderson Funeral Home for exactly forty-five minutes when my mother decided to put a price tag on my grief.
The drive back to Maple Hollow had been a blur of gray highways and static-filled radio stations. I lived three states away, a deliberate geographical buffer between myself and the suffocating gravity of my family home. When the call came about Dad on a Tuesday afternoon, I was at a construction site wearing a hard hat, completely unprepared for the ground to drop out from beneath me. Frank Martin was dead. Heart failure. It happened so fast that by the time I processed the words, he was already gone.
I drove back expecting to find a house in mourning. Instead, when I walked into the viewing room, I felt like I’d walked into a corporate mixer that just happened to feature a casket.
Dad looked small. That was the first thing that hit me. Frank Martin had been a quiet man, but in death he looked diminished. They’d dressed him in a navy suit I didn’t recognize—likely something Kyle had picked because it looked expensive, not because Dad would have liked it. Dad was a flannel-and-corduroy man who hated ties. Seeing him in that stiff silk noose made my eyes burn.
I stood by the casket trying to say goodbye, trying to summon memories of his voice, when I heard her.
“Taylor.” Mom’s voice was soft, melodic, entirely unwelcome. I stiffened but didn’t turn immediately.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, keeping my eyes on Dad’s face.
She moved in close. To anyone watching, it must have looked like a touching moment—a grieving widow comforting her daughter. Her fingers squeezed my forearm, her diamond ring digging into my skin.
“He looks peaceful, doesn’t he?” she whispered.
“He looks like he’s wearing a stranger’s clothes.”
“Don’t start, Taylor. Not today.” Her tone shifted instantly, losing warmth and gaining that familiar metallic edge. “The service starts in twenty minutes.”
I finally looked at her. Denise was impeccable. Black dress perfectly tailored, hair sprayed into immovable blonde perfection, makeup flawless. No red rims around her eyes, no blotchy skin. She looked like she was running a board meeting, not burying her husband.
She glanced around, satisfied no one was within earshot, then moved her hand from my arm to press something into my palm. It felt like thick, crisp paper.
“Take this,” she murmured. “Put it in your purse right now.”
I looked down. My brain couldn’t process what I was seeing. A personal check drawn on the joint account. The amount written in stark blue ink: $1,900. One thousand nine hundred dollars.
“What is this?”
“Shh,” she hissed, smiling tightly at a neighbor approaching the casket. She angled her body to block the view. “That’s for you. To cover your travel expenses and everything else.”
“Everything else?”
“It’s your share, Taylor,” she said, eyes locking onto mine with frightening intensity. “Your inheritance. We wanted to make sure you got it immediately without waiting for probate. It’s a gift from your father and me.”
I looked at the memo line, written in careful block capitals: FULL AND FINAL SHARE.
The air vanished. I looked from the check to Dad’s pale face. He wasn’t even in the ground yet, and she was handing me $1,900 and calling it my inheritance.
“Mom, is this a joke? Dad isn’t even buried—”
“I’m trying to be practical,” she snapped, voice at a whisper. “You know how expensive funerals are. The medical bills were high. This is what’s left for you. I dug deep to give you this much. You should be saying thank you.”
Then she produced a second piece of paper, unfolding it against the casket edge, using my father’s coffin as a desk. “I just need you to sign this receipt for my records, so we can close the books on the estate.”
I looked at it. It wasn’t a receipt. It was a typed document dense with legal jargon: waive all future claims and accept as total satisfaction of inheritance.
“You want me to sign a legal waiver? Here? Now?”
“It’s just a formality,” Kyle’s voice said from behind me. My brother stood there in a perfectly fitted suit, mournful expression plastered on his face. “Just sign it, Taylor. Mom’s stressed enough. Don’t make this difficult.”
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page to discover the rest 🔎👇
