You Paid for My Funeral in Advance

When I woke up, there was an IV in the back of my hand and the sharp smell of disinfectant in my nose.

A nurse pressed a hand to my shoulder.

“Nora, don’t move. You just had surgery.”

The doctor came in soon after, holding a chart.

My fingers tightened around the sheet.

“The baby?”

The doctor was silent for one second.

“I’m sorry. We couldn’t save him.”

The words struck so hard that everything around me seemed to go distant.

I had felt him move that morning. He had still been there when I signed the discharge form, still there on the way to the reception, still there when he gave one soft kick under my palm.

How could he be gone?

The doctor continued, “You were brought in with a severe placental abruption and heavy bleeding. We performed the C-section immediately, and the NICU team tried to resuscitate him, but he had been deprived of oxygen for too long. His heart rate never recovered.”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

The nurse wiped the tears from the corner of my eyes.

“It was a boy,” she said softly.

I had not even named him yet.

I had not even let Adrian hear his heartbeat once.

A light knock came at the door.

A hospital registrar stepped in with a tablet, looking uneasy.

“Mrs. Hayes, I’m very sorry to disturb you right now. We need to confirm a guarantor for the remaining charges. Your surgery and emergency care have already generated some out-of-pocket expenses, and if we can reach your husband…”

I looked at her for a long time before I understood what she was saying.

With the last of my strength, I said, “Call him.”

The nurse picked up my phone and dialed Adrian again.

It still went to voicemail.

She glanced at me and said quietly, “His phone is still off.”

I wanted to tell her to keep calling. I wanted her to tell Adrian that our child was gone. I wanted to ask whether he could finally come now.

But the next wave of pain came first.

Heat spread beneath me, and the sheet quickly soaked through. The monitor began to shriek.

The nurse’s face changed. She hit the call button.

“Postpartum hemorrhage!”

The room filled at once.

Someone pulled back the sheets. Someone brought in a crash cart. Someone called out my blood pressure and the blood loss. The doctor leaned over me, saying my name, telling me not to sleep.

I watched her lips move, but her voice kept drifting farther away.

They pushed me back toward the operating room.

White ceiling lights slid past above me, cold as snow.

I thought of Adrian once telling me he would stand beside me through every hard thing life could bring.

But at the hardest moment of my life, his phone was still unreachable.

The last thing I heard was the doctor saying,

“She’s losing blood too fast.”

Then everything went dark.

Adrian turned his phone back on only after the gala ended.

The art museum lobby was still blazing with light, and the charity auction host was thanking the guests. Madeline stood not far away with the award in her hands, surrounded by several officers’ wives.

The moment his phone powered on, more than a dozen missed calls appeared one after another.

Before Adrian could read them, he saw Lieutenant Cole hurrying through the crowd toward him, his face colorless.

Adrian’s first response was irritation.

“Take some money to the hospital and ask Nora what she wants this time,” he said. “If it is another bill, handle it.”

Cole did not move. His hands were trembling.

“Major Hayes.”

Adrian looked up.

“The base hospital just contacted command.”

Cole swallowed hard.

“Major Hayes… your wife and your child are both dead.”