Chapter 1 - THE BLOOD ON MY FATHER’S CHAIRMy father hit my injured leg because I stained his birthday chair.
That sounds too stupid to be true.
It was true anyway.
I was thirty weeks pregnant, wearing a heavy orthopedic splint from my knee to my ankle, and sitting sideways on my parents' sofa because bending the leg hurt.
Three days earlier, I'd had a minor procedure to clean and close a wound beneath the splint after my leg was injured in a fall at Carter Funeral & Cremation, the family business my grandfather started outside Pittsburgh in 1968.
The dressing had started seeping through that afternoon.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to leave a dark stain on the upholstered chair beside the sofa when my father ordered me to move.
His chair.
Not technically.
It had belonged to my grandfather.
Robert Carter treated it like a family relic.
My father was sixty-one that Saturday.
Linda—my mother—had invited relatives, funeral-home employees, church friends, and two families whose grandparents had known ours for decades.
Twenty-seven people.
A perfect table.
A perfect cake.
A perfect family.
Then Dad saw the stain.
“What did you do?”
I looked down.
“My bandage leaked.”
“On that chair?”
“Dad, I didn't exactly schedule it.”
His expression changed.
That should have warned me.
My father had always possessed an extraordinary ability to transform accidents into disobedience.
When I was twelve, a broken glass meant carelessness.
At seventeen, coming home twenty minutes late meant disrespect.
At thirty, bleeding through a medical dressing onto upholstery apparently meant sabotage.
“You know what that chair means.”
“I know what my leg means.”
My brother Jason stood near the dining room with his phone in his hand.
Twenty-seven years old.
Six feet tall.
Capable of lifting a casket by himself when necessary.
He stared down at his screen.
“Jason,” I said.
He looked up.
Then at Dad.
Then away.
My mother brought a damp cloth.
I thought she was going to clean the chair.
She didn't.
Dad raised one hand.
The first blow came down against the outside of my splinted lower leg.
Hard.
The splint protected me from direct injury, but the force traveled through everything underneath it.
I screamed.
One hand went instinctively over my belly.
“Robert!”
For one hopeful second I thought Mom was stopping him.
Instead she said:
“The guests can hear.”
Dad leaned over me.
“You ruined my birthday chair, so now you'll learn what disobedience costs.”
My mother pressed a folded cloth against my mouth.
I pushed at her wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Stop making this harder.”
Dad reached beneath the splinted leg.
He forced it off the sofa.
Pain shot through me so fast the room flashed white.
Mom whispered:
“Your father is only teaching you respect.”
I looked at Jason.
He was photographing the dining table.
Not me.
The table.
Clean white cloth.
Cake.
Flowers.
Place settings.
As though documenting a magazine spread while his pregnant sister was being held against a sofa.
Something inside me went cold.
Dad bent near my face.
A small brass key hung from his belt.
I recognized the shape.
Casket key.
Carter Funeral kept several styles because the locking mechanisms differed by manufacturer.
Why was he wearing one at home?
“You'll stay quiet,” Dad said, “until I decide this family can trust you again.”
My eyes stayed on the key.
Jason noticed.
His gaze shifted from me to Dad's belt.
Then toward the hallway connecting the private residence to the funeral home's administrative wing.
He slowly lowered his phone.
Dad turned.
That was when Jason moved.
One quick step.
His hand closed around the brass key.
He ripped it free from Dad's belt.
“Dad…”
Dad froze.
Jason stared at the key.
“Tell me why you need a coffin key.”
Nobody answered.
Then, somewhere beyond the hallway, came a heavy wooden thud.
Jason's face changed.
So did Mom's.
That was the first moment I understood something had already been prepared.
Not during the argument.
Before it.
Dad had a casket waiting.
For me.
The Carter funeral home wasn't exactly attached to my parents' house.
It was stranger than that.
My grandfather built the original funeral home inside a large brick residence in Mt. Lebanon before moving his family into a newer private wing behind it.
Over the decades, additions created a maze.
Chapel.
Viewing rooms.
Administrative offices.
Prep area.
Vehicle garage.
Private family living quarters.
From my parents' living room, you could reach the funeral home's rear corridor without stepping outside.
That's where Dad took me.
Mom helped.
Jason stood frozen with the brass key.
“Jason,” I said through the cloth.
Dad pointed at him.
“Go back to the guests.”
My brother obeyed.
For several minutes.
That decision would haunt him later.
They moved me through the service corridor after Dad told the dining-room guests I'd become ill and gone upstairs.
Inside the vehicle bay sat one of the funeral home's oversized transport caskets.
Dark walnut.
Brass hardware.
Unused.
Dad said it had been returned after a manufacturer defect and would be shipped back the following week.
He opened it.
I finally understood.
“No.”
Mom started crying.
“Emily, please don't fight.”
I stared at her.
“You're putting me in there?”
“Only until everybody leaves.”
Dad's voice was calm again.
The calm was worse.
“You've already made enough scenes.”
I tried to stand on my good leg.
Dad caught my arm.
My splinted leg buckled.
They lowered me into the casket.
Not gently enough.
Not violently enough for Dad to admit what he was doing.
That middle territory was where my family lived.
Mom removed the cloth from my mouth once I was inside.
“Don't scream.”
“Mom.”
Tears rolled down her face.
“Please.”
“I'm pregnant.”
“I know.”
“Then open this.”
Dad lowered the lid.
Darkness.
I heard the lock turn.
Then the mechanical click.
I screamed anyway.
I pounded until my hands hurt.
The casket wasn't airtight, but the knowledge didn't help.
My heart raced so violently I thought I would pass out.
Then I felt movement.
The casket rolled.
Lifted.
Metal rails beneath it.
A vehicle door.
They loaded me into a hearse.
Through the coffin wall I heard distant party music.
Someone laughing.
Then Dad's voice outside.
“Emily went home. Her leg was bothering her.”
The hearse door slammed.
And the world became dark again.
I don't know exactly how long I was inside.
Later, GPS records and Jason's phone timestamps narrowed it to eleven minutes.
It felt like a year.
Then something scraped outside.
A key entered the lock.
The lid opened.
Jason's face appeared above me.
He was crying.
“Oh my God.”
“Get me out.”
He did.
And when he lifted me into the vehicle bay, he saw the dressing beneath my splint had darkened badly from the rough movement.
His hands started shaking.
“Emily…”
“Call 911.”
Dad appeared in the corridor.
“Put your phone away.”
Jason looked at him.
For the first time in his life, my little brother said no.
“No.”
Dad stepped forward.
Jason stood between us.
Then he held up the brass key.
“What the hell did you do?”
My father didn't answer.
He looked past Jason at me.
And what I saw in his face wasn't fear of hurting his pregnant daughter.
It was fear that the wrong thing had been opened.
That distinction became important.
May you like
Because three weeks earlier, I'd discovered a problem inside Carter Funeral & Cremation's books.
And Dad had spent every day since telling me there was nothing worth looking at.
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