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.】
