Chapter 3: The Boy Who Saw
Mason didn't cry.
That was the first thing I noticed when Chloe dragged him to the far corner of the room.
Most seven-year-olds, told they were imagining things, would dissolve into tears.
Mason just stood there with his hands at his sides, staring at the floor, his lips pressed together in a thin line.
He knew what he saw.
I could feel more of my body now.
My right hand had enough sensation that I could curl my fingers slowly against the satin lining without making a sound.
My left leg was still numb from the knee down, but the pins and needles had started — which meant it was coming back.
I needed more time.
And I needed Mason.
Chloe had moved to the kitchen doorway to speak quietly with one of the aunts.
Christopher was still outside with his phone.
My mother sat in the chair nearest the window, a handkerchief pressed to her mouth, her eyes closed.
Mason drifted back.
He was slow about it, pretending to look at the floor, at the plastic chairs, at nothing in particular.
But he was moving toward me.
One small step at a time.
He stopped at the edge of the coffin.
"Aunt Madelyn," he whispered.
So quiet it was almost nothing.
I moved my fingers.
One slow wave beneath the fabric.
His breath caught.
"Are you stuck?" he breathed.
I moved my fingers again.
Yes.
He looked over his shoulder.
Chloe was still talking.
Christopher's voice came from outside, low and steady on his call.
Mason leaned in closer.
"Should I tell Grandma Gwen?"
I pressed my fingers flat.
Wait.
Then I raised one finger slowly.
One person.
The right person.
His forehead creased.
He was thinking hard, the way children do when they understand the weight of something without being told why it's heavy.
"Not my mom," he said.
It wasn't a question.
I kept my finger raised.
He nodded once, very seriously, and straightened up.
He picked up the cookie he had dropped earlier, brushed it off on his pants, and walked toward my mother.
"Grandma Gwen," he said, tugging her sleeve.
"Can I sit with you?"
My mother opened her eyes and pulled him gently onto her lap.
"Of course, sweetheart."
Mason leaned close to her ear.
I couldn't hear what he said.
The praying in the next room was too loud, and one of the neighbors had started crying again.
I watched my mother's face over the narrow gap in the lid.
For a long moment, nothing changed.
Then her hand, which had been resting on Mason's back, went completely still.
She didn't look at the coffin right away.
She was careful.
She set Mason down, told him to go get a glass of water from the kitchen, and stood slowly, the way a woman stands when she doesn't want anyone to notice she's standing.
She walked to the coffin.
She didn't say my name.
She bent down as if adjusting the flowers on the stand beside me, and I felt more than heard her breath — fast and shallow — close to the gap.
"Madelyn." The word was barely air.
"Mom," I breathed back.
The sound she made was not a scream.
It was the opposite of a scream.
It was the sound of someone swallowing every instinct they had, all at once.
"Don't move," she whispered.
"Don't make a sound.
I need to think."
Her hand appeared through the gap.
She pressed it flat against mine, and I felt her fingers shaking.
"How long have you been awake?"
"Since this morning.
I can't move my legs yet."
A pause.
Outside, Christopher laughed at something the person on the phone said.
"I heard them," I whispered.
"All of it.
The insurance.
The transfer.
Chloe's dr*g in the milk."
My mother's hand tightened on mine.
"There's someone else," I said.
"Christopher called someone.
He said they'd get their half."
She was quiet for three full seconds.
"I know who it is," she said.
Before I could ask, footsteps crossed the room.
My mother straightened, adjusted the flowers again, and turned to greet one of the neighbors with a tired smile.
I lay still, my mother's words turning over and over in the dark.
She knew who it was.
May you like
She had known before I told her.
Which meant this had been building longer than one night.
