She gave it to me.’ I was left standing alone—until a sleek black car stopped beside me. The window lowered, and a distinguished man asked, ‘Are you Britney Mays’
The last handful of cold, sticky earth landed on the coffin lid with a dull thump. The sound echoed somewhere deep inside my chest, as if it weren’t clumps of Kansas dirt falling, but pieces of my own heart crashing down into the void.
That was it. Mom was gone. The thought was both simple and monstrous, a truth my mind refused to fully accept.
I stood there, gripping the thin fabric of my black coat, staring into the grave as the November wind cut through me. It whipped the bare branches of the surrounding trees, tearing the last withered leaves from their grasp and tossing them onto the fresh mounds of earth. There weren’t many people left.
In her final years, Mom had lived quietly, almost like a recluse. A few elderly neighbors, a distant relative I hadn’t seen in twenty years, and my Aunt Lydia, Mom’s older sister. They shuffled awkwardly for a moment, murmuring their condolences, before hurrying away from the damp chill.
I remained until the workers picked up their shovels. My husband, Chris, had been silent beside me the entire time. Not a single word of comfort had passed his lips, but he held my arm, his grip almost painfully firm.
I was grateful for it. I felt that if he let go, I would collapse right there on the cold ground. When the gravediggers finished their solemn work, a neat rectangle of fresh earth lay before us.
Chris finally released my hand. I turned to tell him it was time to go home, to begin the hollow ritual of the wake, but the words caught in my throat. He was looking at me with a strange expression.
There was no sorrow in his eyes, no empathy. There was something else, something cold and calculating, and the faintest, cruelest smirk played on his lips. “What?” I whispered, a chill creeping over me that had nothing to do with the wind.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed my elbow, his fingers digging into my arm like a vise, and pulled me aside, behind the weeping branches of an old willow tree. “Listen carefully, Britney,” his voice was a low hiss, more terrifying than a shout.
“It’s over. Your mother is dead.”
I stared at him, bewildered. Of course, she was dead.
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