My Husband Took the Necklace Off My Body

“We haven’t even buried her yet, and you’re already dividing up her things.”

My mother’s voice was the first thing I heard when I woke up inside my own coffin.

I didn’t know it was a coffin yet.

At first there was only the smell.

Lilies. Candle wax. Coffee that had been sitting too long.

My tongue felt swollen and completely dry. My back hurt from lying flat, and when I tried to move my fingers, nothing happened.

I tried again.

My hand stayed against my side.

Then I noticed the wood beneath me.

A thin strip of light came through a narrow opening somewhere above my face.

I stared at it until my eyes adjusted.

Beyond that opening, I could see part of my mother’s living room in Milwaukee.

The cream lace curtains.

The old mahogany clock.

Rows of folding chairs.

And directly across the room, surrounded by white flowers, was a framed photograph of me.

That was when I understood.

They thought I was dead.

My breathing changed, but even that felt weak. I tried to lift my head.

Nothing.

I tried to call for my mother.

My lips moved, but no sound came out.

Then a man stepped beside the coffin.

I recognized Christopher’s wedding ring before I saw his face.

My husband leaned over me.

For one ridiculous second, I thought he had noticed that I was breathing.

Instead, his fingers went to my neck.

He slid them beneath the chain of the gold heart necklace my grandmother had given me when I was fifteen.

“Christopher.”

My mother sounded exhausted.

“Leave that alone.”

He unclasped it.

“Madelyn would want someone in the family to have it.”

I screamed his name inside my head.

Christopher straightened.

A second person stepped closer.

Chloe.

My younger sister lifted her blond hair away from her neck.

“Are you sure?”

Christopher fastened my grandmother’s necklace around her.

Chloe touched the little gold heart with two fingers.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It was her favorite,” my mother said.

Nobody answered her.

I stared through the opening until my eyes watered.

The necklace had an M engraved on the back. My grandmother had worn it herself for more than thirty years before giving it to me.

Christopher knew that.

Chloe knew it too.

Yet there she stood beside my coffin wearing it before I had even been buried.

My mother crossed the room.

“Take it off.”

Chloe’s hand dropped.

“Mom, please. Not now.”

“Exactly. Not now.”

Christopher stepped between them.

“Everybody is upset. Let’s not turn jewelry into an argument.”

Jewelry.

That was what he called it.

I tried moving my right index finger again.

Nothing.

My mother walked away.

Christopher waited until she was out of earshot.

Then he looked at Chloe.

They exchanged a glance that lasted maybe two seconds.

It was enough.

Something was wrong.

Not with the funeral.

With them.

The Last Thing I Remembered Was a Cup of Cinnamon Milk

My memory returned in pieces.

The previous evening, I had been sitting at our kitchen island with my laptop open.

Christopher was standing near the refrigerator.

Between us was a bank statement.

Forty-two thousand dollars had been transferred out of an investment account that belonged to me.

I had noticed it only because I was preparing quarterly tax records for the commercial building my aunt left me.

“What is this?” I asked.

Christopher barely looked.

“What?”

I turned the laptop toward him.

“Forty-two thousand dollars.”

He stared at the screen.

“Renovations.”

“What renovations?”

“The house.”

“We haven’t done forty-two thousand dollars of work on this house.”

His face changed.

Not dramatically.

Christopher rarely yelled.

He became quieter when he was angry.

“Madelyn, I’m tired.”

“Then answer me tomorrow. But I’m calling the bank in the morning.”

He opened the refrigerator.

“You check every dollar like I’m one of your employees.”

“It came out of my account.”

He shut the refrigerator harder than necessary.

“There. That. Your account. Your house. Your building.”

The house had been mine before our marriage.

The commercial building downtown had belonged to my aunt Patricia. She never had children, and when she died, she left it to me.

Christopher had always referred to both properties as ours.

Usually I let him.

That night I didn’t.

“Legally, yes.”

He looked at me for several seconds.

Then the doorbell rang.

Chloe stood outside holding a glass bottle.

“Peace offering,” she said when she entered.

She knew Christopher and I had been arguing.

I never questioned how.

She poured cinnamon milk into my favorite blue mug and warmed it in the microwave.

“Drink this,” she said. “You look terrible.”

I remember taking the mug upstairs.

I remember the cinnamon.

I remember Christopher coming into the bedroom while I was drinking it.

After that, nothing.

Until the coffin.

“Once the Insurance Comes Through”

By late afternoon, most of the visitors had left.

I knew because the room had become quiet enough for me to hear the clock again.

My mother was somewhere in the kitchen.

Christopher and Chloe came back to the coffin.

This time neither of them looked inside.

“How long?” Chloe whispered.

“For what?”

“The insurance.”

There was a pause.

“A few weeks.”

My stomach tightened.

“And the house?”

Christopher lowered his voice further.

I strained to hear him.

“We sell it after the paperwork is finished.”

“What about Patricia’s building?”

“I have copies of everything.”

I stopped trying to move.

I just listened.

Chloe touched the necklace hanging around her throat.

“That place has to be worth over a million now.”

“Probably.”

“And nobody can challenge it?”

Christopher glanced toward the kitchen.

“Keep your voice down.”

Chloe leaned closer.

Then she asked:

“What if she wakes up?”

Christopher gave a short laugh.

I will remember that laugh longer than I remember the coffin.

“After what you gave her?”

Chloe said nothing.

Christopher continued.

“She drank the whole thing.”

My eyes closed.

The cinnamon milk.

Chloe.

The pills.

I forced my eyes open again.

I needed somebody to look at me.

Anybody.

But everyone who came near the coffin looked at my clothes, my hands, the flowers.

Nobody looked into my eyes.

Until Mason did.

My Seven-Year-Old Nephew Looked Through the Gap

Mason was Chloe’s son.

He was seven and incapable of following instructions for longer than thirty seconds.

That afternoon, it saved my life.

I heard his sneakers before I saw him.