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.”
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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