Coffin Money - 8

Day 17 at home

As promised, Andrew came to visit his grandma again. She became even more thin and fragile in the five days that he didn’t see her. He pulled all his strength not to break down when he entered Sarah’s bedroom.

“Look who I brought with me, grandma!” Andrew said and stepped aside to give way to Paul.

“Why? What’s he doing here?” Sarah said in her weak hoarse voice.

“I came to make peace, grandma,” Paul said quietly, trying to hide his shock of seeing Sarah in this state.

“You are not my grandson and I’ve never been a good grandma to you, have I?” Sarah’s eyes welled up. “I shouldn’t have told you David was not your father. I’m sorry for that.”

“You’ve taught me some good lessons,” Paul said, sitting down on a chair next to Andrew, who was now holding Sarah’s hand.

“Yeah, like what?”

“That you cannot take anyone’s love for granted and that you need to stand up for yourself.”

“I’m sorry. Those are hard lessons to learn as a child. You know that David loved you like his own son, don’t you? And still does.”

“Yeah, I know. Dad’s a good man.”

They kept silent for a little.

“How are you feeling?” Paul finally asked. “Any pain?”

“Like shit!” Sarah smiled weakly. “And no, no pain at all. Donna manages it well.”

“Speaking of management, Andrew told me you wanted some money to be managed? I can help, you know.”

“Ah, that’s my coffin money. I’ve been saving it to be buried in a nice coffin, not some cheap box. But I forgot where I stashed it.”

“Ah, OK,” Paul said, not knowing what else to do or say. Andrew was not sure if Sarah was telling the truth because she’d mentioned that she didn’t want anyone else to know about the money.

“Donna! Please come over here!” Sarah finally said. Donna rushed in, “What is it?”

“Could you please turn me a little? I feel sore.”

By now, Donna could read Sarah like an open book. “Sure,” she said and nodded at Paul and Andrew. “You boys, say your good-byes. This is private and will take awhile.”

Both tearful, Paul and Andrew said her good-byes, and left. They knew this was the last time they saw Sarah alive.

Day 19 at home, New Year’s Eve

Donna called David at work, “You should come. I think she is going…”

David called Anna, she picked him up from work and drove to Sarah’s apartment. When they arrived, Sarah motioned for them to get closer to her.

“You are a good wife to my son, I’m sorry I didn’t treat you well,” Sarah said in a raspy breaking voice. Anna wanted to say something, but Sarah motioned for her to stop, swallowed hard and continued, “I’m also sorry you never got officially married. It’s not right. I give you two my blessing.”

“Thank you,” Anna said, shocked. She never dreamed of hearing something like this from Sarah.

“Do you forgive me?” Sarah asked.

“Of course,” Anna’s eyes were full of tears.

“No need to cry,” she said to Anna. “I’m not afraid. Or in pain. Please tell Maria I’m sorry too. I should have been a better grandma to her.”

Anna nodded.

“Now you,” Sarah looked at David, who was sitting next to her, holding her hand tight. “Move closer.”

David leaned in to hear better.

“My coffin money is in…” Sarah said laboriously, gave out a big sigh and died.

“Mom, mother! Please no, God, no!” David started sobbing uncontrollably. Anna quietly cried standing next to him.

Donna rushed in and recorded the time of death. “Rest in peace, Sarah,” Donna said, touching Sarah’s hand. “They say people who die around holy days go straight to Heaven.”

She gave David and Anna several minutes to grieve and unhooked Sarah’s body from the equipment.

***

Anna and Paul arranged and paid for the funeral, to give David and Andrew ample time and space to grieve. Sarah was buried next to her husband in a nice coffin.

Rose the dachshund died six days after Sarah. Anna placed Sarah’s three cats with friends and relatives, but two of them were returned because they could not be trained to use the litter box. So, they had to be placed in a rescue home. Anna felt bad about it, but they already had two cats in their home that Sarah’s cats did not get along with.

Sarah left no will behind, and no instructions as to how to handle her property. David called Sam’s wife and she said she had no claim to it. She also added that she wasn’t sorry Sarah died.

About a month after Sarah’s death, Anna suggested that they should lease her apartment out so that the property did not sit idle.

“We’ll clean it out, change the wallpaper and do the necessary repairs, and it can give us a little bit of a rental income,” Anna said.

“That’s a great idea, we can do that until the apartment clears for inheritance, and then sell it.”

“I don’t want you to sell it,” Anna said. “I just want you to keep it in your name in case anything ever happens to me and you need a place to live. Because you know, everything I own will go to Maria.”

“Are you planning to leave me?” David asked, panicked.

“No, honey, I love you. But anything can happen, you know.”

“Nothing will happen to us,” David hugged Anna, “We will live happily and die on the same day.”

“Sure, honey,” Anna said and gave him a kiss.

“Oh, wait, we cannot lease the apartment or have anyone else work on it until we find mother’s coffin money!” David slapped himself on the forehead.

“C’mon, honey, now you’ll be talking about her damn coffin money!”

“The way mom was obsessed about it, you’d think it’s a lot of money. I did basic estimates: she said she’d been saving it for 30 years, right?”

“Ok, and?”

“Even if she saved just a dollar a day, and she could be meticulous like that, it’s 365 days for 30 years, almost $11K.”

“Now you are talking,” Anna said, and David couldn’t tell if she was sarcastic. “At least it would offset some of the expenses for Donna’s services and the funeral.”

“Exactly!” David exclaimed enthusiastically.

“Well, what’s your plan then?”

“I will go there every day after work and try to find it. After I find it, we can clean it up and lease it out.”

“Deal, that will also give you an opportunity to sort and give away her stuff and throw out trash and things no one would need,” Anna said.

“Deal,” David said, even though he was not particularly thrilled about sorting the things out.

From then on, David went to the apartment every day after work and worked for a couple of hours there. It was indeed hard work, as Sarah never threw anything out. Also, going through his mother’s things sent David on memory trips that distracted him from the mission. When he came home to Anna, he’d give her a brief report on what he accomplished.

“No coffin money yet, I take it?” Anna’d ask him.

“Nope.”

“It seems so futile, honey. What if you never find it?”

“Well, I guess we will have saved money on cleaning and organizing.”

“And we’ll also have a really good story to tell our grandchildren,” Anna said as she always tried to find something positive in everything life threw at her.

“Are you going to write it?”

“Of course not, I’m not a writer. I’ll hire a professional, I can afford it,” Anna returned the banter.

In about two weeks, David called Anna from the apartment, and said, “I’ve found it!”

“The coffin money?”

“Yes!”

“Where was it?”

“I should have paid attention to the clues: Her getting up in the middle of the night that day to check if the cleaners found it, and also her yelling at the cleaning staff not to touch anything in the kitchen…”

“Yeah, where was it? Don’t drag it, please!” Anna said impatiently.

“In her favorite loose tea can, at the bottom, rolled up into a tube and sealed in a little Ziplock baggy.”

Anna laughed, “But of course, makes perfect sense! Where else could it be, it’s your mother!”

“Good thing I didn’t throw the can out. I wanted to see if the tea was still good as it looked moldy and shook it, and there it was!”

They laughed together for a little while.

“So, how much was it?” Anna finally asked.

“Five hundred!”

“Not thousand, right? It wouldn’t fit that tin can.”

“No, five hundred dollars!”

“Oh my God, that’s like less than a penny a day for 30 years! And two days of Donna’s work! And one handle on her coffin.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, it’s laughable. But the best part is, she left a note!”

“Did she now?”

“Yes!” David laughed again.

“What does it say?”

“It says, ‘If you are David, I’ve saved you money on cleaning. If you are not David, have fun with my hard-earned money!’”

Anna and David broke into hysterical laughter.