They Stole My Grandmother's Coffin for a Wedding Bed

Three years of scrimping got me a hundred and sixty thousand, enough to have a full burial casket built out of fine solid wood.

It was for my grandmother, past eighty now.

My uncle and his wife talked my cousin Homer Pruitt into it, a boy who never once said no to them, and in the dead of night they pried the lock.

They hauled the casket out and draped it in red cloth.

They turned it into the wedding bed for his new marriage.

I went to demand it back.

Homer shoved me to the ground with his own hands.

In front of a yard full of relatives he called me cold and stingy, said I'd throw away three generations of family love over a coffin.

Nobody knew I had the full woodworking contract and the transfer record for the whole payment.

And the security footage of them prying the door open and carrying the casket out in the middle of the night.

I didn't keep arguing.

I only waited for the right moment to settle up with these leeches, one debt at a time.

At 1:47 in the morning, the alert on my phone went off.

I sat up in bed and pulled up the feed from the family home's storeroom.

On the screen, my uncle was swinging a pry bar, smashing at the lock on the east wing door.

My aunt held a flashlight on the keyhole, hissing at him to hurry.

Homer stood behind them.

A cart sat by his feet, and two loops of thick rope hung over his shoulder.

The lock gave way fast.

The three of them slipped inside and dragged out the casket I'd just had made, inch by inch.

The coffin ran nearly seven and a half feet long, its walls thick and heavy.

The lid was carved with pine, crane, and longevity patterns, and on the inside my grandmother's name and birth date were written in gold lacquer.

Three years of saving, and it was the resting place I'd finally been able to give her.

My father died young. My grandmother was the one who raised me.

Every day she went out before dawn to sell eggs in town.

She wore her shoes through to the soles and still wouldn't skip buying me one more workbook.

After I started working, the first thing I did each payday was put four thousand into a separate bank account.

I lived in an eight-hundred-a-month partitioned room.

I wore the same old coat for five years.

The day I finally had the whole hundred and sixty thousand, I went to the woodworking workshop to choose the wood for the first time.

The old craftsman told me that preparing a burial casket while the elder was still alive was called adding years, back in the village.

When my grandmother found out, she scolded me out loud for wasting money.

But she turned away and wiped her eyes more than once.

Those days she was on an IV drip at the town clinic.

I didn't want her worrying, so I'd locked the casket in the family home's storeroom for the time being.

It never crossed my mind that my uncle's family would come steal it in the night.

I called Homer right away.

The phone rang for a long time before he picked up.

On the feed, he glanced down at the screen, not a trace of panic on his face.

"What are you doing?"

"Just moving something. You had to call in the middle of the night for that?"

"That's the casket I bought for Grandma."

He pinned the phone with his shoulder and looped the rope around the casket.

"Grandma's alive and well. What's the harm in lending it to me for the wedding, just a few days?"

The call cut off.

I grabbed my car keys and rushed out to the village.

By the time I reached Homer's new place, the red lanterns at the door were already lit.

The casket had been carried into the master bedroom.

The lid was off, propped across two long benches.

The body of the coffin was flipped upside down, a thick mattress laid on top, then draped all around with a big red bedsheet.

From a distance it really did look like a wide, heavy solid-wood marriage bed.

My uncle circled it once, more pleased with every step.

"A hundred and sixty thousand worth of wood gathering dust in a storeroom, now that's a waste."

My aunt took out a palm-sized gold double-happiness ornament and was about to nail it into the center of the lid.

I rushed in and snatched the hammer out of her hand.

"Who told you you could touch it?"

My aunt shoved me back.

"It's all Pruitt family property. What's yours, what's mine?"

"An unmarried granddaughter, going over the son's head to prepare an elder's casket. That was never proper to begin with."

I pointed at the inside of the coffin.

"The contract's in my name. I'm the one who paid."

"Move it back. Now."

My uncle's face darkened.

"Homer's getting married any day now, and the marriage bed fell through at the last minute."

"When the eldest grandson starts a household, using a casket to steady the joy first, that's bringing blessings to the old lady."

A few relatives at the door, there to help set up the wedding room, nodded at once.

Someone said the eldest grandson carried the strongest luck.

Someone else said if the casket touched the wedding joy first, the old woman would pass in peace later on.

The nonsense went around the room and somehow settled in as if it were the rule.

I grabbed hold of the red sheet.

"You stole this. Don't use Grandma as your excuse."

Homer threw himself in front of me, blocking my way.

"My parents did this for the wedding too."

"You really have to make everyone lose face today?"

He knew who'd bought this casket.

He knew exactly how I'd scraped together that hundred and sixty thousand.

But my aunt tossed off a line beside him, "My boy's the sensible one after all."

And what little hesitation was on his face vanished.

He wrenched the hammer back out of my hand.

He pressed the gold double-happiness ornament to the center of the lid.

I reached out to stop him.

The hammer had already come down hard.

The long nail drove through the ornament, and through one corner of the carved longevity pattern.

I grabbed Homer's wrist.

Stop!

He wrenched his arm free hard.

My feet slipped out from under me.

I went down into the gravel of the yard.

My palms burned.

A sharp stone tore open my elbow, and blood seeped through my sleeve fast.

A dozen or so relatives stood around, there to help set up the wedding room.

Every one of them saw him shove me.

Not one came to help me up.

Instead the uncle seized the moment and raised his voice.

Let everyone here be the judge.

This is a burial casket meant for her grandmother, and the old woman is a Pruitt, so of course the thing belongs to the Pruitts.

Homer's the eldest grandson. Sleeping on the casket before his wedding wards off misfortune for the old woman and adds to her blessings.

Several relatives crowded in at once.

One said a happy occasion pressed down the death-aura, and maybe Grandma would live a few extra years for it.

Another said the casket was already inside the new room, and hauling it out again before the wedding would cut off the eldest grandson's line.

Someone else stared at the blood on my hand, blaming me for spoiling a joyful event with bad luck.

The aunt waited until every voice had swung her way, then dabbed at the corner of her eye and drove the knife in.

Your grandmother hasn't even closed her eyes yet, and here you are rushing to spend a hundred and sixty grand on a coffin.

So which is it, are you being a good granddaughter, or are you hoping she goes soon?

Something in my chest clenched tight.

The blood in my palm ran down between my fingers and dripped onto the ground.

Grandma was so afraid of being a burden to me that even in the hospital she wouldn't let herself buy a carton of milk.

And in their mouths,

my preparing her burial casket turned into me wishing her dead.

I pushed against the ground and got to my feet.

The contract is mine. The money is mine.

You broke the lock and hauled it off. That's theft.

The uncle's face went black on the spot.

I'm your uncle, and you're calling it theft?

A few years earning money in the city and you've forgotten every rule your ancestors set down?

Homer stood at the uncle's side.

I looked at him for a long moment.

At nineteen you couldn't even pay your own training fees. Who was it that shoved her summer-job money into your hands?

Something flickered in his eyes.

The uncle gave a cold snort.

Dragging up old grudges again.

The line was like an out he'd handed Homer.

Homer's head came up at once.

It's a hundred and sixty grand, so what?

You've held that little bit of money over this whole family for three years, and you actually think you're some grand devoted granddaughter?

With that he turned and hurried the others to keep making up the bed.

A big red mattress covered the longevity patterns that had been hammered through.

To get the casket flush against the wall,

the uncle even had someone bring a saw and cut off the tenons jutting out the side.

Wood shavings scattered across the floor.

In that instant, I didn't rush forward again.

A yard full of kin, all on their side.

If I threw myself at them now, they'd only pin me down.

And I'd keep carrying the name of the one who wrecked the wedding and offended Grandma.

I took out my phone.

I photographed the casket lid hammered through.

The joints sawed apart.

The cracks the dragging had caused.

And the whole wedding room draped in red cloth.

Seeing me take pictures, the uncle actually laughed.

Get it nice and clear.

Let the city folks see too, how grand our Homer's hundred-and-sixty-grand solid wood wedding bed is.

He thought I was already out of options.

He even had the aunt hand me wedding candy and tell me to stay and help.

I ignored it.

When I got back to the family home, the broken lock was still lying on the ground.

The door frame was all dented from the crowbar.

I went into the security system and downloaded the full raw footage from the small hours.

The uncle prying the lock.

The aunt holding the flashlight.

Homer looping the rope around the casket and dragging it.

Every single move caught clear as day.

I backed the video up three times.

One copy saved to the cloud.

One copied onto an external drive.

The last one sent to a lawyer.

Then I dug out the woodworking contract, the bank records for the hundred and sixty thousand, and the workshop's signed delivery receipt.

The first page of the contract had my name on it.

The line for whom the casket was made read: Grandmother, Zoey Pruitt.

The casket's serial number matched the number in the footage exactly.

The lawyer replied quickly::

You have enough evidence. Don't get into any more head-on confrontations for now.

I pressed the phone dark.

The wound in my palm was still seeping blood.

Only then did I notice I'd been shaking the whole time.

I went to the sink to rinse off the grit, my fingers curling with the pain.

That line Homer had thrown out just now, that I was hoping Grandma would die soon.

It hurt worse than the wound.

I'd once thought of him as my own brother.

From this moment on, no more.

The phone rang out of nowhere.

The aunt's shriek stabbed into my ear.

Tessa, Homer's fallen off the casket!

If anything happens to him, I'll make you pay with your life!

Homer's fall was a bad one.

He'd climbed onto the overturned casket to hang red gauze across the top of the wedding room.

The uncle didn't like how the carved longevity patterns stood out along the edge of the lid. Said they'd ruin the photos of the wedding room.

So he pushed Homer to take a saw and shave them flat.

The bench holding up the casket shifted without warning.

Homer dropped from more than six feet up.

The back of his head hit the corner of the wall.

He was out cold on the spot.

By the time I reached the hospital, the uncle was outside the ER telling anyone who'd listen that the burial casket was cursed, bad luck through and through.

The moment the aunt saw me, she rushed over and grabbed a fistful of my jacket.

"He fell on your coffin, so you're paying the medical bills!"

I pried her fingers off and started the voice recorder on my phone.

"He fell on the thing you stole."

The aunt's voice caught.

But the relatives around us weren't done.

Someone said Homer and I had argued the night before and I'd wrecked the feng shui of the wedding room.

Someone else said the burial casket had soaked up my resentment, and that was why it turned on the eldest grandson.

Another one told me I should just pay up, or my grandmother would find out and it would end up shortening her life.

I didn't argue.

I only recorded every word of it.

The next afternoon, Homer woke up.

After the exam, the doctor said his memory had stopped about five years back.

The last five years, he'd forgotten almost all of it.

I stood in the doorway of his room.

The uncle and aunt got to the bedside first.

Over and over, they told Homer:

He was about to get married.

I had thrown a fit in the wedding room, trying to snatch the family's burial casket away.

His fall from up there was my fault too. I'd driven him to it.

Homer listened for a long while, frowning.

Then he spotted me through the crowd.

"Tess?"

That was what he'd called me back when he was nineteen.

"Why'd you get so thin?"

The aunt's face changed at once.

"Don't listen to her. She's the reason you got hurt."

Homer looked at her.

"Why would she want to hurt me?"

"She's been selfish since she was little. Throws around a little money and thinks she can run the whole family."

The uncle put in from beside her:

"When has she ever really helped you?"

Homer's frown pulled tighter.

"My training fees. Didn't Tess pay those?"

"When I went out of town for my internship and had no money, she wired me living expenses every month."

The room went quiet for a beat.

Five years ago, the uncle had called the training program a waste of money and forced Homer to quit. It was my summer job money that paid his fees.

Later, when Homer went out of town to intern and got no pay for three months, I was the one sending him money the whole time.

With the last five years wiped out, what he remembered happened to be from before things between us had gone completely bad.

The uncle smoothed the panic off his face fast.

"That was all in the past."

"People change. All she cares about now is money."

For the next two days, the uncle and aunt took turns keeping watch in his room.

They painted me as a woman who'd used a burial casket to curse a wedding, who'd cut off her own family for the sake of an inheritance.

And they kept telling Homer that the casket was just old wood from the family home.

That once I'd made a little money in the city, I'd forced it into my own hands.

Homer's head ached listening to it.

A few times he tried to ask me something, but the aunt cut him off.

I didn't barge into the room to explain.

And just because he still remembered the good I'd done, I didn't pin my hopes on him.

I made a trip to the woodworking workshop.

The old craftsman pulled up the material selection records, the carving photos, and the delivery video.

The name, birth dates, and serial number on the inside of the casket were all there in the original photos.

Using all of it, the lawyer tightened up the lawsuit materials.

On the third night, I went to the hospital to pick up copies of the medical records.

As I reached the room, I heard the uncle drop his voice.

"Tomorrow we bring Homer back early."

"Get every relative in the village there to witness it."

The aunt sounded uneasy.

"Right now all he remembers is Tessa being good to him. What if he won't help us?"

"Then we teach him what to say."

"Have him swear the burial casket belonged to the Pruitts all along, and that Tessa's the one who caused his fall."

There was no sound from inside the room.

The two of them thought Homer was already asleep.

The uncle went on:

"As long as the coffin stays in the new house, the wedding can go ahead."

"After it's done we sell off the wood. That'll cover the shortfall on the banquet."

I didn't push the door open.

Back in the car, the relatives' group chat had already gotten the uncle's notice.

Tomorrow morning, everyone was to gather at the new house as witnesses.

He was going to make Homer say it out loud himself.

That I had seized the Pruitt family's property and caused his injury.

I forwarded the group message to the lawyer.

We go ahead as planned.

The next day, the uncle brought Homer back to the village early.

The courtyard of the new wedding house was packed with relatives and neighbors.

The burial casket still sat in the middle of the master bedroom.

Red cloth was draped over it, with a thick mattress laid on top.

Gold wedding decorations covered the carved longevity patterns on the coffin lid.

The uncle bragged about it to everyone who came.

This was a hundred-and-sixty-thousand-dollar solid-wood marriage bed.

Relatives crowded around it taking photos, saying the eldest grandson was using burial wood to press good fortune into the marriage.

It would add years to the old woman's life, they said, and it would guarantee the Pruitt family a son.

The moment the lawyer and I walked in, the voices in the courtyard dropped low.

The uncle pointed at me and pronounced his verdict in front of everyone.

"This burial wood belongs to the Pruitt family."

"Homer is the eldest grandson. Using it for a few days before the wedding is a rule the ancestors left us."

"Tessa made a scene in the wedding room over money, got Homer hurt, and now she wants to sue her own uncle."

Several of the older relatives blocked the doorway and would not let me near the casket.

One said the red cloth had already been laid over the coffin, so it could not be carried out until after the wedding.

Another said if I insisted on taking it away, I was cutting off Homer's bloodline.

The aunt helped Homer into the middle of the crowd.

"Homer, tell everyone."

"Wasn't it Tessa who barged into the wedding room and made you fall from up high?"

Homer's face was still a little pale.

He looked at the uncle, then at the marriage bed covered by the red cloth.

"You're all saying this is old wood from the family home that nobody wanted?"

The uncle answered fast.

"Of course."

"You used to play on it when you were little."

"Later Tessa insisted she'd bought it."

Homer said nothing.

He walked into the wedding room and grabbed a corner of the red cloth.

The aunt rushed to block him.

"Once the red cloth is on, it can't come off. Taking it off ruins the luck!"

The relatives at the door joined in.

"Seeing a coffin before a wedding is bad luck!"

"Whatever you've got to say, say it after the wedding's done!"

Homer raised his arm and pushed the aunt aside.

The red cloth was torn back all at once.

The whole body of the casket came into full view.

On the inner side, gold lacquer spelled out Grandmother's name and birth date.

Beside it was the custom order number from the woodworking workshop.

Below the gold wedding characters, the longevity carvings had been punched clean through with long nails.

The people crowded at the door all stepped back together.

Someone covered their mouth.

Someone spat on the ground and muttered about the bad luck.

But it did not take long for someone to shove the blame onto me.

"Tessa's the one who had to pull it off in front of everyone. That's what let the bad luck out."

"The coffin's already in the wedding room. Carrying it away now would only wreck Homer's fate worse."

The uncle forced his smile back.

"You hear that?"

"Everyone understands the rules. You're the only one who has to make trouble."

Homer stared at the name on the casket.

"Didn't you say this was old wood?"

The uncle's smile stopped for a second.

"Your head's not right yet. Don't worry about all this."

He reached out to pull the red cloth back over it.

"Hurry up and tell everyone whether Tessa's the one who got you hurt."

Homer dodged his hand.

The uncle's voice dropped.

"Homer, I'm your father."

"You know what you're supposed to say."

Everyone in the courtyard was watching them.

The old Homer would cave the instant the uncle so much as frowned.

The uncle was clearly waiting for it too.

The look of a man holding a winning hand came back onto his face.

He even threw a glance at the relatives blocking the door.

But Homer did not go to him.

He looked at Grandmother's name on the casket.

Then he looked at the bruises still fading on my arm.

The uncle reached out to pull him to his side.

Homer flung that hand off hard and turned, putting himself between me and the casket.

"Tessa didn't take anything from anyone."

"You're the ones who pried the lock in the middle of the night and stole the burial casket she spent a hundred and sixty thousand on for Grandmother. And now you want to force me to frame her in front of the whole village."

He looked up at the uncle and aunt and said it one word at a time.

"Dad, Mom, you're the thieves."

"I only trust Tessa."

"Every single word out of your mouths, I don't believe!"