All Chapters of The 50-Dollar Urn: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

Gail lived right next door, with just a wall between us. She was a single mother raising her daughter on her own while taking care of her bedridden, paralyzed mother. Between work and looking after the two of them, she was constantly run ragged. I often cooked extra and brought meals over to her place.She would eat until she had grease all over her lips and say, "I'm the luckiest woman alive to have you as my neighbor, Bridget."There was a tradition in our town. Once a parent turned 60, the children were expected to start making burial arrangements.Three days ago, Doug's father and Gail's mother celebrated their birthdays on the same day. They had each ordered an urn from me, and we had agreed they would come pick them up today.Every day after that, Gail had been watching me plane the wood. I never expected her to side with Trish and slander me.As far as I knew, mine was the only shop in the area that sold real ebony urns. Everyone else used MDF. The stuff did not last. MDF r

[I've never once seen her out there working. Her yard is spotless. Not a speck of sawdust anywhere. She buys plywood online and glues the urns together. She'll do anything to make a dirty buck.]Doug suddenly spoke up: [Now that I think about it, Bridget isn't even from here. She wandered in as a kid, and the old carpenter took her in. We took her in out of the goodness of our hearts, and this is how she repays us? Kick her out! Someone like that doesn't deserve to live in Millbrook!]The rest of the group piled on.[Yeah, kick her out!][Get out of our town!][A crook like her has no place here!]They even hung a banner outside my shop. [Fraudulent merchant sells fake urns! Get out of our town! Justice for Millbrook!]My heart went completely cold. I found the business card and called Neil. "Mr. Compton, I've made my decision. I would like to take you up on that partnership."The next morning, I packed my things and rolled down the shutters.Trish and Doug were standing acr

Mitch did not even flinch. "What do you mean you lost your mother's ashes because of my urn? You dropped it and broke it yourself, and now, you want to blame me for it. I've seen people skip out on a bill. I've seen people act unreasonably. But I've never seen someone try to scam a free urn out of a funeral shop."Hank's chest heaved. "You sold us garbage and passed it off as quality. Now something's gone wrong and you won't own up to it."Gail's brows were knitted tightly together. "You're nothing but a crook selling us defective urns. You owe us an explanation today."Hank's voice was hoarse. "That's right. You're not just refunding us for the urns. You're paying for the damage you caused when my mother's ashes were lost."Mitch tipped his chin up, completely indifferent. "You think 1,500 dollars gets you top-grade ebony? You get what you pay for. You picked the style yourself and paid for it willingly. Now that something has happened, you come crawling back to start trouble. You

I hung up and blocked his number. However, the moment I put the phone down, it buzzed again. This time, it was Gail. I hung up on her too.However, they kept calling. Messages flooded in one after another.[Bridget, we need to talk to you. Please pick up.]=Bridget, please be the bigger person and answer the phone. We really have nowhere else to turn to.]By the end of the afternoon, I had over 99 missed calls and unread messages. I finally answered out of sheer irritation, just to keep it from disrupting my work.Gail's frantic voice came through the line. "Bridget, thank goodness you finally picked up."My voice was cold. "What do you want?"She hesitated. "Bridget, where are you right now? We need you to make us three urns."I let out a dry laugh. "You want me to make them? It's been, what, a few days? And you've already forgotten how you called my urns plywood fakes? How you said I was making dirty money off all of you? And you have the nerve to come back to me?"There wer