The Wrong Woman in the Coffin

The family gathered at midnight to mourn Mrs. Lukas’ death.

She had been the binding agent of love and support for the family. Through their hardships, their ambitions, and the failures they seldom spoke about, she had provided whatever they needed. Each month, money arrived in their accounts. When someone needed more, more came.

No one remembered her refusing a request.

Yet none of the children had ever seen her face.

They knew her through the money she sent, the letters she wrote, and the promises she kept. They worshipped her like a goddess, despite knowing her like a real mother. They wanted to hold her, hear her laugh, and understand why she refused to meet them.

Nobody understood why she remained so mysterious.

Tonight, at last, they would see her.

The funeral director had arranged a private viewing between midnight and dawn. In her final instructions, Mrs. Lukas had requested this unusual hour. Her coffin stood at the front of the chapel, surrounded by white flowers.

The lid remained closed.

A brass clock above the chapel doors struck twelve.

The eldest daughter approached the coffin and rested her hand on its polished surface.

"Why wouldn't she let us see her?"

Her brother stood beside her.

"Perhaps she thought we wouldn't love her."

"How could she think that?"

He had no answer.

Their youngest sister approached with a folded letter. It had arrived that afternoon, addressed in their mother's handwriting.

She opened it.

My darling children,

Everything I have given you came from love. I have never asked you to understand why I stayed away. I only wanted you to have what I could give you.

Before the sun rises, you will understand.

Your loving Mama.

The daughter folded the letter and placed it beside the coffin.

"Then why is the lid closed?"

Nobody knew.

***

At half past twelve, a man entered the chapel.

He wore a dark overcoat and leaned upon a cane. His hair had turned white, and his hands trembled as he removed his hat.

He had received notice of Mrs. Lukas's death that morning. The name had troubled him enough to bring him to the funeral home.

For years, he had believed the woman buried under that name was someone he had once loved. He had spent most of his life drinking to forget the woman he had lost and the terrible mistake he feared he had made.

The funeral director approached.

"May I help you?"

"I was married to Mrs. Lukas."

The director glanced toward the coffin.

"Then perhaps you should come with me."

The man followed him down the aisle.

"Who arranged this funeral?"

"The family."

"Which family?"

"Her children."

He stopped.

"Her children?"

"Yes, sir."

The man looked around the chapel. Several people watched him from their seats.

He recognized none of them.

"May I see her?"

The funeral director hesitated.

"She requested a closed coffin."

"I need to see her."

The director studied the man's face, then released the catches.

The lid lifted.

The old man bent over the coffin.

His cane struck the floor.

For several seconds, he could neither move nor speak.

Then he gasped.

"I thought you were dead. The kids and I buried you."

He gripped the coffin’s edge.

"I was drunk when they showed me the body. God help me, I was drunk."

His eyes filled with tears.

"My God. I buried my wife."

***

Thirty-seven years earlier, he had loved two women.

The first had wanted to marry him. She loved him with a devotion that frightened him. But they had learned they could never have the children he wanted.

He had dreamed of a family. Beautiful children with strong bodies and bright eyes. He wanted a house filled with their laughter.

When he met another woman, he ended the relationship.

His former lover begged him to reconsider.

He refused.

Within a year, he married the second woman.

She gave him children.

His former lover never forgave either of them.

One evening, while he was away, she entered his home.

His wife recognized her.

"What are you doing here?"

"I've come to see what you have that I don't."

"Please leave."

The woman looked past her into the house.

A child's coat hung beside the door. Small shoes stood beneath it.

She picked up one shoe.

"How many?"

"Please put that down."

"How many children?"

"Three."

The woman examined the shoe.

"Three."

His wife reached for the telephone.

The first blow knocked her against the kitchen counter.

She tried to crawl away.

Her attacker caught her by the ankles and broke her toes. When she reached for the door, the woman twisted her arms behind her until every bone in her fingers was snapped. She broke the fingers off and forced them into her victim's mouth.

Then she cut her throat.

She dragged the body into the cellar and returned with a knife and a pair of pliers.

By the time she finished, the woman's teeth were gone. The skin from her fingertips was destroyed. Her face bore injuries that made recognition difficult.

The murderer changed into her victim's clothes and left the house.

She had taken the woman's life.

Now she intended to take everything else.

***

When the husband returned, he found his children alone.

Their mother had disappeared.

He searched the house, called her friends, and drove around the neighbourhood. When the police arrived, they found a woman's body in the cellar.

He had emptied most of a bottle of whisky by the time the officers took him to identify her.

At the morgue, an officer warned him about the state of the remains.

He insisted on seeing her.

The sheet was pulled back.

He turned his face away.

"Do you recognize her, sir?"

He looked again.

The woman's face had suffered terrible injuries. Her throat had been cut, her fingers broken off, and her feet mutilated. Her teeth had been removed, and the skin of her fingertips was destroyed.

The police could not identify her by fingerprints or dental records. They had requested other records, but nothing had established her identity.

He remembered his former girlfriend's threats after he ended their relationship.

"That's her," he said.

"Your wife?"

"No. My former girlfriend."

"Are you certain?"

He nodded.

The officer asked him to look again.

"I told you who she is."

The police recorded his identification, although the condition of the body left questions they could not answer.

The investigation continued, but no evidence established the woman's identity beyond doubt.

The husband buried the woman he believed was his former lover.

His three children attended the funeral.

Their mother's murderer watched from across the cemetery.

***

At one fifteen, the old man sat in the front pew.

The funeral director brought him a glass of water.

"Are you certain you know this woman?"

"I knew her."

"Was she your wife?"

"No."

The director frowned.

"Then why did you say you were married to Mrs. Lukas?"

"Because I was. But this isn't her."

He pointed toward the coffin.

"This woman was my girlfriend before I married my wife. I buried her thirty-seven years ago."

One of the daughters stepped forward.

"You're mistaken. That's our mother."

The man looked at her.

"Who told you that?"

"She did."

"Did you ever meet her?"

The daughter shook her head.

"Then how do you know?"

"She took care of us."

"How?"

"She sent us money. Every month. She wrote letters. She knew everything about us."

The old man pressed his hands against his knees.

"Where did you live?"

The daughter gave him an address.

He stared at her.

"That house burned down twenty years ago."

She looked at her brother.

"No. We live there."

"I went to the fire. I saw what was left."

The youngest daughter spoke.

"We've never had a fire."

The old man rose.

"Who are you people?"

The daughter held out her mother's letter.

"We're her children."

He looked at the handwriting.

His lips parted.

He recognized it.

***

At two o'clock, the funeral director tried to telephone the police.

The line was dead.

He checked his mobile phone.

No signal.

Outside, the streetlights had gone out. The houses opposite the chapel stood dark.

He opened the front doors.

A cold wind entered, carrying the smell of wet earth.

Beyond the steps, he could see the cemetery.

There should have been a road.

He closed the doors.

When he turned around, the family had gathered around the coffin.

The old man stood among them.

"Where did you get the money?" he asked.

The eldest son answered.

"It came from Mama."

"From where?"

"Her accounts."

"Who put it there?"

The son shook his head.

"Every month, it appeared."

The youngest daughter opened her handbag and removed an envelope.

"Here's the latest one."

The old man examined the date.

Yesterday.

He opened the envelope and found a check made payable to his youngest daughter.

He recognized the account number. It belonged to his wife.

He had closed that account after her death.

"Where do you cash these?"

"At the bank."

"Which bank?"

"The one on Main Street."

He lowered the check.

"That bank was demolished fifteen years ago."

The children exchanged glances.

"No, Papa. We were there yesterday."

He looked at the check again.

The paper had begun to yellow beneath his fingers.

The ink faded.

He turned it over.

Across the back, in handwriting he recognized, someone had written:

For my children. With all my love. Mama.

The old man dropped the check.

It struck the floor and crumbled into dust.

The youngest daughter knelt to gather the pieces.

"Papa, what's happening?"

He looked toward the coffin.

"I don't know."

From inside came three faint knocks.

Then a woman's voice.

"The payments must continue."

***

At three seventeen, the woman in the coffin opened her eyes.

She could hear them.

Their voices moved around her, familiar from years of letters and telephone calls.

She had always wondered what they looked like.

She had imagined them as children, then as adults. She had imagined their birthdays, their weddings, and the homes they would one day own.

She had never allowed them to visit.

At first, she feared recognition.

Later, she feared they would discover she had no right to call herself their mother.

But the money had continued.

She had found the accounts after the murder. The first payments came from the husband's savings. Later, she learned that money arrived whenever she wished it into existence.

She never questioned how.

She sent it to the children.

When they asked for help, she gave more.

When they thanked her, she saved their letters.

She told herself she had made something good from what she had done.

Then the years passed.

She stopped remembering her own.

She remembered the face of the woman she replaced.

And one evening, she lay down and never rose again.

She had no memory of dying.

Only waking inside the coffin.

Now she heard the old man's voice.

"You killed her."

She tried to answer.

Her mouth would not open.

"You killed my wife."

She remembered the kitchen.

The child's shoe.

The broken fingers.

She remembered how much she hated the woman who had given him everything she could not.

She had wanted to take her place.

And somehow, she had.

***

At four thirty, the children stood around the coffin.

The old man had retreated to the chapel doors.

He could see them now as they had been on the day of the fire. Their clothes bore marks of smoke. The youngest daughter's hair had burned away on one side of her head.

He remembered the flames.

He remembered searching for them.

He remembered the three small coffins.

He had buried them beside their mother.

Yet here they stood.

"Papa," the youngest said.

He covered his mouth.

"You're dead."

She nodded.

"We know."

"Then why are you here?"

"We came for Mama."

"She's not your mother."

The daughter looked toward the coffin.

"She took care of us."

"She murdered your mother."

The girl stared at him.

For the first time, she understood why the woman who had supported them had refused to show her face.

The old man reached for his daughter.

His hand passed through her shoulder.

She looked at him with tears in her eyes.

"Not yet, Papa."

***

At five o'clock, the old man held the last check beneath the chapel light.

"Where did this money come from?"

The eldest son pointed toward the coffin.

"Mama."

The old man examined the signature.

He knew that handwriting. He had seen it on birthday cards, grocery lists, and the notes his wife left on the kitchen table.

"This writing isn't her signature."

"Of course it is."

"No. This belongs to my wife."

The check grew warm in his fingers.

A red stain appeared beneath the signature.

He dropped it onto the table.

The stain spread across the paper.

A scratching sound came from inside the coffin.

The funeral director approached and lifted the lid.

Mrs. Lukas lay with her eyes open.

Her mouth moved.

"There's nothing left," she whispered.

The old man leaned closer.

"What?"

"She has nothing left to give."

A woman's voice answered from beneath the chapel floor.

"Then give them back."

The floorboards shifted.

The old man stumbled away as something struck the underside of the floor.

Once.

Twice.

Then a hand broke through the wood.

Its fingers were missing.

The youngest daughter screamed.

The hand reached toward her.

"Mama?" she whispered.

The hand stopped.

Another blow shattered the floorboards.

A woman pulled herself through the opening. Her throat hung open where the knife had passed through it. Her mouth held the spaces where her teeth had been removed.

She reached toward the children.

Mrs. Lukas screamed from the coffin.

"They're mine!"

The woman turned her ruined face toward her murderer.

For the first time in thirty-seven years, she spoke.

"You've been spending me."

***

The old man backed against the chapel wall.

The woman who had emerged from beneath the floor approached the coffin.

Every payment had come from her.

The woman who murdered her had believed she was giving the children money. She had taken credit for every gift and every sacrifice she made.

But the payments had drawn upon the dead mother's remaining existence.

A memory for one payment.

A piece of her body for another.

Each gift had cost the murdered woman something she could never recover.

Yet she had endured it because the money reached her children.

The replacement mother had stolen her identity, her family, and the life she should have lived. Even in death, she had continued taking from her.

The murdered woman looked at the children.

They stared at her injuries.

Then the youngest daughter stepped forward.

"Mama?"

The woman reached toward her.

Mrs. Lukas tried to sit upright.

"Children, don't listen to her!"

The daughter ignored her.

She looked into the woman's eyes.

She knew those eyes.

***

At five forty, the first pale light touched the chapel windows.

The coffin began to tremble.

Inside, Mrs. Lukas felt something loosen around her chest.

She remembered the woman she had murdered.

She remembered taking her name, her place, and her children.

She had believed that money could give the children everything she had stolen from them.

But she had never held them.

She had never kissed their foreheads or wiped their tears.

Now she understood what she had denied them.

Beyond the coffin, a great iron cauldron stood where the chapel altar had been. Its surface reflected the stars. Beyond it stood gates that reached into darkness.

Mrs. Lukas understood that she had been dead for years.

The monthly payments had crossed the boundary between the living and the dead. Each gift had brought the children closer to her, but each one had been taken from the woman she murdered.

The children gathered around the cauldron.

Their real mother stood beyond it.

As the children approached her, the wounds on her body began to disappear. Her throat closed. Her hands became whole. The terrible damage to her face vanished.

The youngest daughter recognized her first.

"Mama!"

All three ran toward their mother. The youngest reached her first and threw her arms around her waist. The others followed, holding her, kissing her cheeks, pressing their faces against her.

Their mother gathered them into her arms. Tears ran down her cheeks as she kissed each child.

Mrs. Lukas tried to climb out of the coffin.

"I thought we buried you," their daddy said.

"Children! It's me. I've taken care of you all these years."

Nobody turned.

"I gave you everything!"

The eldest son looked over his shoulder.

"You took our mother away."

"But I loved you."

He turned back toward his mother and wrapped his arms around her.

Mrs. Lukas watched them embrace. She had sent them money every month, answered their letters, and provided for their every need. She had believed they would love her as their mother.

Now they stood before her, and she could see how wrong she had been.

The gates beyond the cauldron opened.

Their mother took the youngest daughter's hand. Her other children walked beside her, their arms linked through hers.

Together, they crossed the threshold.

Mrs. Lukas called after them.

None looked back.

The gates closed as the sun rose.

She lowered herself into the coffin and stared at the empty chapel.

For years, she had lived under another woman's name. She had taken her home, her husband, and her children.

Now the only thing that was hers was the coffin.