The Funeral That Never Was
I was in my little rental outside Waco, Texas, the kind with a screened porch that doesn’t quite keep the mosquitoes out, a flag on the mailbox that my neighbor Jimmy replaced every Veterans Day, and the radio always low in the background—talk radio mostly, because the silence got too heavy after my husband passed three years ago.
White lilies lay across the kitchen table, still wrapped in their plastic sleeve from the grocery store. I’d bought them that morning without knowing why, just feeling pulled toward them in the floral section like my body knew something my mind hadn’t caught up to yet. They were Blaine’s favorite long before he learned to shave, back when he was small enough to fit in my lap and would point at every white flower we passed and say “moon flowers” because that’s what he thought they looked like.
My son. My only child. My Blaine.
The phone rang at 3:47 PM on a Tuesday. I know because I’d been watching the clock, waiting for my soap opera to start, doing the kind of nothing you do when you’re seventy-one and retired and your days stretch out like empty highway.
When Nola’s name flashed on my phone, I expected grief, not efficiency.
Her voice came out flat, clipped, like someone rescheduling an appointment instead of breaking a mother’s heart.
“Carol,” she said. Not Mom, not even a hello. Just my name, said like punctuation.
“Nola? Honey, what’s wrong?”
“He’s gone,” she said. “Blaine is gone. We already laid him to rest in a small service for close friends only.”
The words came at me like birds hitting a window—each one separate, each one sharp, but together making no sense at all. I remember staring at the linoleum floor, at the crack that ran from the stove to the back door, waiting for the words to rearrange into something that made sense.
“What do you mean, gone? What happened? When did this—”
“Last Thursday,” she said, too quickly, like she’d rehearsed it. “Heart attack. It was very sudden. Very peaceful. He didn’t suffer.”
Last Thursday. Five days ago. Five days of my son being dead while I bought groceries and watered plants and complained about the heat.
“Why didn’t anyone call me?” I asked, and my voice cracked on the last word. I was scrolling through my missed calls with shaking hands, looking for something I’d missed, some sign that the world had tried to tell me my child was dying.
“You didn’t answer,” she said. Too quickly again. “I tried calling. Several times. You must have been out.”
I looked at my call log. Nothing. No missed calls from Nola. No voicemails. Nothing.
“I don’t have any missed calls from you.”
A pause. Then: “Well, maybe the service was bad. It doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done.”
It doesn’t matter now. Like my son’s death was a form to sign and move past, like missing his funeral was just an inconvenience we could smooth over with polite explanations.
“Where is he?” I asked. “Where did you bury him?”
Another pause, longer this time. “Green Meadows Cemetery. Off Highway 6.”
“Which plot? I want to visit.”
“I… I don’t remember the exact plot number. I can look it up and call you back.”
She told me there would be “another service” on Thursday at two, at a funeral home off Maple Street—Reynolds Funeral Home, she said, or maybe Robertson, she wasn’t sure. And then, as if she were doing me a favor, she said it might be better if I didn’t come, because Blaine “wouldn’t have wanted a scene.”
A scene. As if a mother showing up to say goodbye is a disruption, not a right.
“Why would I make a scene?” I asked, but she’d already hung up.
I sat there for a long time, phone in my lap, lilies on the table, the radio still talking about things that didn’t matter anymore.
Something was wrong. Something was deeply, fundamentally wrong, and I couldn’t quite name it yet, but I could feel it the way you feel a storm coming before you see the clouds.
Blaine and I hadn’t been close in recent years—not the way we used to be when he was young and I was everything to him. After he married Nola seven years ago, the calls got shorter, the visits got rarer, and there was always some reason why now wasn’t a good time.
“We’re so busy with work, Mom.”
“Nola’s family is visiting this weekend.”
“The holidays are just so stressful, maybe next year would be better.”
I’d driven the four hours to Dallas to see them maybe twice in the past three years, and each time felt like I was interrupting something, like my presence was a burden they were too polite to name directly. Nola would smile and make coffee and talk about her interior design business, and Blaine would sit quietly and check his phone, and I’d leave feeling more alone than when I arrived.
But he was still my son. And I was still his mother. And five days ago he died, and nobody told me.
I called the hospital she’d mentioned—Dallas Presbyterian, she’d said—ready to beg, ready to hear a doctor’s name and cling to it, ready to understand how this happened.
The receptionist was kind. Patient. She checked and double-checked and then said, “Ma’am, I’m not showing any patient by that name in the last six months.”
“Maybe it was a different hospital?”
“You could try Baylor or Medical City, but if it was a heart attack, they would have likely brought him to the closest facility, which would be us.”
My stomach dropped hard.
I called Baylor. Medical City. Parkland. Nobody had a record of Blaine.
I called the funeral home next, because surely that part couldn’t be a lie. Reynolds or Robertson, off Maple Street.
There was a Reynolds Funeral Home. The woman who answered had a soft, practiced voice—the kind you develop after years of talking to grieving people.
“I’m calling about my son,” I said. “Blaine Hutchins. I understand there was a service?”
“Let me check.” Keyboard sounds. A long pause. “Yes, we have a service scheduled for a Blaine Hutchins.”
Relief flooded through me so fast I felt dizzy. “When is it? Thursday at two?”
“No, ma’am. It’s… let me see. It’s scheduled for tomorrow morning. Wednesday. Ten AM.”
Tomorrow. Not Thursday. Less than twelve hours away.
“I was told Thursday,” I said.
“I’m showing Wednesday in our system. Would you like me to confirm the details with the family contact?”
“Who’s listed as the contact?”
“Nola Hutchins.”
Of course.
“Can you tell me if there was already a service? A private one?”
More keyboard sounds. “I don’t see any record of that. This appears to be the only service scheduled.”
That night I didn’t sleep. I sat in Blaine’s old bedroom—the room I’d kept exactly as he left it when he went to college, even though that was over twenty years ago now. His crooked diploma from UT Dallas hung on the wall. His high school football trophies gathered dust on the shelf. A poster of his favorite band, peeling at the corners.
I flipped through my calendar, seeing every “visit” crossed out with a new excuse written in my careful handwriting. “Nola’s mother in town.” “Work emergency.” “Not feeling well.” Year after year of crossed-out weekends and postponed holidays.
I kept hearing Nola’s polite voice from years ago—sweet apologies, perfect timing, always one more reason why it wasn’t convenient. I kept hearing my own voice responding—”Okay, next weekend,” like I was asking permission to love my child, like I was the one being unreasonable for wanting to see my son.
When had it started? When had the distance become a wall?
I thought about the last time I actually spoke to Blaine. Really spoke to him, not just texted or left a voicemail he never returned. It was Christmas, maybe? No—Thanksgiving. Fourteen months ago. He’d called while Nola was out shopping, and for fifteen minutes he’d sounded like himself again. Lighter. Younger.
“I miss you, Mom,” he’d said.
“I miss you too, baby. When can I come visit?”
A pause. Then his voice got careful again. “I’ll talk to Nola about it. She’s got a lot going on with work right now.”
That was the last real conversation we’d had.
By sunrise, I wasn’t just grieving. I was terrified. Terrified that if I didn’t get in the car right then, I wouldn’t even know where my son was laid to rest. Terrified that everything Nola had told me was a carefully constructed lie, but I couldn’t figure out why she would lie about something so enormous.
I drove to Dallas that morning, leaving before the sun was fully up. Four hours of highway, the radio off, my mind racing through possibilities I didn’t want to name.
I arrived at Reynolds Funeral Home at 9:30 AM. Early. I parked across the street and watched.
At 9:45, cars started arriving. Not many—maybe ten total. I didn’t recognize any of them. At 9:55, Nola pulled up in her white Mercedes, alone, wearing a black dress and sunglasses.
No hearse. No flowers at the entrance. No sign announcing a service.
I waited until 10:15, then walked across the street and through the doors.
The lobby was empty. Soft music played. A woman at the reception desk looked up.
“I’m here for the Hutchins service,” I said.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that service is private.”
“I’m his mother.”
Her expression shifted—surprise, then discomfort. “Let me… just one moment please.”
She disappeared through a door. Voices murmured. Then Nola appeared, and her face when she saw me was not grief. It was anger. Raw, undisguised anger.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed.
“I’m here for my son’s funeral.”
“I told you Thursday. I told you not to come.”
“The funeral home said Wednesday. Why did you lie to me, Nola?”
“I didn’t lie, I made a mistake—”
“Where is he?” I pushed past her, into the hallway, looking for the chapel, for a casket, for any evidence that my son was actually here.
“You can’t just barge in—”
“I’m his mother!”
I found the chapel. Small. Quiet. And completely empty except for five people sitting in the front row. No casket. No flowers. No photos. Nothing.
One of the people turned around. A woman about Nola’s age, looking confused.
“Nola?” she said. “Is this the grief counselor?”
Grief counselor.
“No,” I said slowly. “I’m Blaine’s mother. Where is my son?”
The woman’s confusion deepened. “Blaine’s… I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Nola said this was a support group meeting.”
Support group.
Everything went very cold and very clear.
“There is no funeral,” I said, and it wasn’t a question.
Nola grabbed my arm. “Carol, please, let’s talk outside—”
“WHERE IS MY SON?”
Seven days.
Seven days passed in hold music, unanswered questions, and lilies that wilted faster than my hope. I called places I’d never heard of, drove past cemeteries with my window cracked, and wondered how a person can disappear while the world keeps mowing lawns.
I filed a police report. They said without evidence of a crime, there was nothing they could do. Missing adults have a right to privacy, they said. Unless I had proof Blaine was in danger, they couldn’t force him to contact me.
“But his wife said he’s dead,” I insisted.
“Did she file a death certificate?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is there a body?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we can’t help you, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
I hired a private investigator. A man named Rodriguez who worked out of an office above a dry cleaner and charged me two hundred dollars just to listen to my story.
“I’ll look into it,” he said. “But I gotta be honest with you, Mrs. Hutchins—this sounds like a case of family estrangement, not a missing person. If your son is alive and doesn’t want contact, that’s his legal right.”
“But why would she say he’s dead?”
He shrugged. “People do strange things. Maybe she’s trying to cut you off permanently. Maybe she’s got financial reasons. Maybe she’s just cruel. I’ll check what I can check.”
I called Blaine’s old friends. The ones I had numbers for, anyway. Most didn’t answer. The two who did said they hadn’t talked to Blaine in years, that he’d become distant after he got married.
“Nola didn’t like his old crowd,” one friend said carefully. “She wanted him to focus on ‘their future’ or whatever. He just kind of… disappeared from everyone’s life.”
I drove past their house in Dallas. A nice house in a nice neighborhood. The lawn was mowed. Lights were on. Cars in the driveway—Nola’s Mercedes and a truck I didn’t recognize.
I knocked on the door. Nobody answered, even though I could hear a TV inside.
I went to Blaine’s workplace—an accounting firm downtown. The receptionist was polite but firm: “I can’t give out information about employees.”
“Is he alive?” I asked desperately. “Can you just tell me if my son is alive?”
She looked uncomfortable. “Ma’am, I really can’t—”
“Please. I’m begging you. His wife told me he died, but I can’t find any record, and I just need to know—”
“He’s not dead,” she said quietly, glancing around. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but he’s not dead. He took a leave of absence last month, but he’s definitely alive.”
On the eighth day, my phone rang again. It was Nola, and this time she wasn’t calm—she sounded panicked, almost furious, like someone had just been told a secret they weren’t supposed to hear.
“What are you doing to my life?” she snapped.
“Excuse me?”
“The police called me. A private investigator showed up at my work. You’re harassing me, Carol, and I could file charges—”
“You told me my son was dead!”
“I told you we were separated!” she shouted. “I told you he left me, and you weren’t listening because you never listen!”
“You said he died. You said heart attack. You said funeral—”
“I said we had a separation service! A closure ceremony! For our marriage! God, Carol, do you hear yourself? Twisting my words, making everything about you—”
“Then where is Blaine?”
Silence.
“Where is my son, Nola?”
More silence. Then, in a different voice—quieter, harder: “He doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Let me hear that from him.”
“He blocked your number months ago. He’s done with you, Carol. He’s done with your guilt trips and your neediness and your constant demands for attention. He asked me to tell you he died because he wanted you to finally leave him alone.”
The words hit like bullets. Each one precise. Each one meant to wound.
“That’s not true,” I whispered.
“Call him yourself if you don’t believe me. Oh wait—you can’t. Because he blocked you.”
And before I could respond, before I could ask or beg or demand, she said one sentence that made me grab my keys and go cold:
“He’s getting married again in two weeks. To someone who actually respects his boundaries. So do us all a favor and stay in Waco.”
I sat in my car outside my little rental house for three hours, phone in my hand, mind racing through every conversation, every cancelled visit, every polite excuse.
Had I been too needy? Too demanding? Had I pushed him away without realizing it?
Or had Nola been slowly, carefully cutting me out of his life, thread by thread, until there was nothing left connecting us?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know anymore what was real and what was manipulation.
Finally, I did something I should have done days ago. I called Blaine’s email address—the one I still had from years ago. I didn’t expect him to respond. But I needed to try.
I wrote:
Dear Blaine,
I don’t know if you’ll read this. I don’t know if you’ll respond. But I need you to know that Nola told me you died. She told me there was a funeral. She told me not to come.
I don’t know what’s true anymore. I don’t know if you blocked my number or if that was another lie. I don’t know if you’re getting remarried or if she made that up too.
What I do know is that I’m your mother. I will always be your mother. And if you want me out of your life, I need to hear it from you. Not from her. From you.
If you want me gone, I’ll go. I’ll respect that. But I need to hear your voice saying it.
I love you. I have always loved you. Whatever happened between us, whatever distance grew, whatever I did wrong—I’m sorry. And I love you.
Mom
Three days passed. No response.
On the fourth day, my phone rang. Unknown number.
“Mom?”
His voice. Blaine’s voice. Deeper than I remembered, rougher, but unmistakably his.
“Blaine.” I was crying immediately, ugly crying, the kind that makes your whole body shake. “Oh God, Blaine, are you okay? Are you safe?”
“I’m okay.” He sounded tired. So tired. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“What happened? Nola said—”
“I know what she said. She told me. Jesus, Mom, I’m so sorry.”
“Why? Why would she do that?”
He was quiet for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was shaking. “Because she’s been controlling everything for years, and I didn’t see it. Or maybe I did see it and I was too scared to admit it. She isolated me from everyone—my friends, my coworkers, you. She monitors my phone, my email, my bank accounts. She made me cut you off completely, said you were toxic and manipulative, and I believed her because… because I didn’t know what else to believe.”
“Where are you now?”
“I left her. Three weeks ago. I’m staying with a friend. I filed for divorce. And when I checked my email yesterday—an old account she didn’t know about—I saw your message and I just… Mom, I thought she told you we separated. I didn’t know she said I died. I didn’t know she put you through that.”
I was sobbing so hard I could barely speak. “Are you safe?”
“Yeah. I’m safe. I’m getting help. Therapy. Legal help. I’m getting out.”
“Can I see you?”
Another pause. “Not yet. I need some time to… to figure out who I am without her voice in my head. But soon. I promise. Soon.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t enough, but it was something. “Okay, baby. Take your time. I’ll be here.”
“I love you, Mom. I’m sorry I let this happen. I’m sorry I let her—”
“It’s not your fault,” I said fiercely. “None of this is your fault.”
It’s been six months since that phone call.
Blaine and I talk every week now. Sometimes more. He came to visit last month—drove all the way to Waco and stayed for three days. We didn’t talk much about what happened. We just existed together. Cooked meals. Watched TV. Sat on the porch in comfortable silence.
He looks older. Thinner. There are lines around his eyes that weren’t there before. But he also looks lighter somehow, like he’s carrying less weight.
The divorce is almost final. Nola tried to fight it—claimed he was having a mental breakdown, that I was manipulating him, that he needed psychiatric evaluation. But Blaine had evidence. Texts. Emails. Financial records showing how she’d controlled every aspect of his life.
“She made me think I was crazy,” he told me one night, sitting on my porch with a beer in his hand. “For years, she made me think that wanting to see my own mother was a sign of unhealthy dependency. That my friends were bad influences. That anyone who didn’t agree with her was toxic. And I believed her because she said it so confidently, so consistently, and I loved her.”
“That’s what abusers do,” I said quietly.
“I know that now.”
He’s rebuilding. Slowly. He got his own apartment. Started seeing a therapist. Reconnected with old friends. Got a new job at a different firm.
And he comes to visit. Not every week, not even every month. But regularly. Consistently. Like we’re building something new from the ruins of what we lost.
The white lilies on my kitchen table have been replaced a dozen times over. I buy them every week now—not because they’re Blaine’s favorite anymore, but because they’re mine. Because they remind me that even in the darkest moments, when you think everything is dead and buried, sometimes you’re just being lied to.
Sometimes the funeral is fake.
Sometimes the person you thought you lost is just trapped, waiting for someone to question the story, to push through the lies, to refuse to accept the easy answer.
I almost gave up. I almost believed her. I almost let my son be buried alive in a marriage that was killing him.
But I didn’t.
I kept calling. Kept searching. Kept refusing to accept that my child was gone without proof.
And that’s what saved him.
Not my love—love isn’t always enough. But my stubbornness. My refusal to be shut out completely. My insistence on hearing the truth from his own mouth.
Nola tried to bury my son while he was still breathing.
But I dug him up.
And now we’re both learning how to live again.
THE END
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
Sophia holds a degree in Journalism from the University of Toronto, where she developed her skills in news reporting, media ethics, and digital journalism. Her expertise lies in identifying key stories, crafting compelling narratives, and ensuring journalistic integrity in every piece she edits.
Known for her precision and dedication to the truth, Sophia thrives in the fast-paced world of news editing. At TheArchivists, she focuses on producing high-quality news content that keeps readers informed while maintaining a balanced and insightful perspective.
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