“We need that trust money for the wedding. Stop being selfish.”

Mom’s voice cut through the phone like a blade—sharp and demanding. I sat in my empty house in Phoenix, Arizona, still wearing the same black dress from yesterday, still feeling the weight of the dirt on my hands from filling in my son’s grave myself.

“I understand,” I said quietly. My name is Allison and I’m 35 years old. Two days ago, I buried my nine-year-old son completely alone while my parents and sister celebrated her engagement party across town.

They knew about the funeral. They chose the party instead. The silence on the other end of the phone stretched long enough that I wondered if Mom had hung up.

Then she cleared her throat. “Good. Patricia needs twelve thousand for the catering deposit, and we figured Tyler’s trust fund can cover it.

You’re the executor, so just write the check.”

Tyler—my beautiful, brilliant boy who loved dinosaurs and could recite every fact about velociraptors—who fought leukemia for three years with more courage than most adults show in a lifetime, who died holding my hand while asking if Grandma and Grandpa were coming to visit. “The lawyer will need a few days to process everything,” I said, my voice steady despite the storm brewing inside me. “A few days.”

“Allison, the venue needs payment by Friday or Patricia loses her spot.

Can’t you just transfer the money from your account and get reimbursed later?”

I closed my eyes, remembering how I’d begged them to postpone Patricia’s engagement party—just one day—just to be there when their grandson was laid to rest. Mom had clicked her tongue and said, “Honey, Tyler wouldn’t want us to be sad. He’d want us to celebrate family happiness.”

Family happiness.

While I shoveled dirt onto my child’s coffin with my bare hands because the funeral home workers had already left. “I’ll take care of it,” I told her. “Perfect.

And Allison, try to focus on the positive. Patricia’s wedding will be a fresh start for all of us. We need to put this difficult time behind us and move forward.”

The call ended.

I set the phone down and walked to Tyler’s bedroom where his dinosaur posters still covered the walls and his favorite stuffed Triceratops sat on the unmade bed. We’d been living in this house for the past year, ever since I’d moved back to Phoenix to be closer to family during Tyler’s treatment. What a mistake that had been.