He looked like a child waiting for adults to catch up with something he already believed.
I pushed the shovel back into the dirt.
The workers kept going.
The people around us edged closer as the grave deepened.
Some whispered that this had gone too far.
Others said nothing at all.
I heard pieces of conversation but couldn’t hold on to any of them.
My entire world had narrowed to the ground beneath my feet.
Dig.
Lift.
Throw the dirt aside.
Dig again.
I kept thinking about the doctor telling me cardiac arrest.
I kept thinking about the mortician calmly explaining Laura’s warmth.
I kept hearing Ethan say his mother had called his name.
Those three things didn’t fit together in any way I understood.
But they were enough to keep my hands moving.
Then my shovel struck something solid.
Thunk.
The sound ran through the wooden handle and into my arms.
I froze.
One of the workers looked down immediately.
The other stopped digging.
We had reached the coffin.
For several seconds, I couldn’t move.
All the fear I had managed to bury beneath physical work came back at once.
Until that moment, digging had given me something to do.
Now there was nothing left between me and the answer except a lid.
The workers carefully removed the remaining soil around the coffin.
I helped where I could, though my hands were trembling badly enough that one of them finally motioned for me to step back.
Ethan came closer and slipped his hand into mine.
His palm was small and cold.
I squeezed it without looking away from the coffin.
The crowd behind us had grown quiet.
I could feel people watching Ethan.
They had been watching me before.
Now they were watching him.
He was the reason we were standing there.
The strange part was that he seemed calmer with every inch of dirt we removed.
Everyone else was becoming more frightened.
Ethan wasn’t.
He kept his eyes on the coffin as though opening it was not a terrible possibility but the completion of something he had been waiting for since the burial began.
I wanted to ask him again what he had heard.
I didn’t.
There was no point.
He had already told me.
Mom’s not dead.
She’s calling me.
When the coffin was finally exposed enough to open, one worker wiped mud from his gloves and looked toward me.
He didn’t say anything at first.
His expression asked the question for him.
Was I sure?
I looked at Ethan.
Then I remembered Laura’s hand resting inside mine that morning.
Warm enough to make me stop.
Warm enough to make me ask.
Warm enough that I was now standing in an open grave wondering whether I had made a terrible mistake by trusting the explanation I had been given.
I nodded.
The worker turned back toward the coffin.
Someone behind us whispered a prayer.
Another person took a step closer before stopping at the edge.
Rain tapped against coats and umbrellas, but even that seemed distant.
The worker bent down.
He reached for the lid.
Ethan tightened his grip on my hand.
I could feel my heartbeat in my throat.
Part of me wanted to stop everything before the coffin opened.
Another part knew I had already crossed the point where stopping would protect anyone.
If Laura was exactly as we had buried her, I would have to face what I had done and help Ethan face it too.
But if there was even the smallest chance that my son’s certainty meant something, I needed to know before another minute passed.
The worker adjusted his hands.
I leaned forward without realizing it.
Ethan stood beside me, completely focused on the coffin.
No one spoke.
The lid began to move.
And every person gathered around that grave held their breath.
