Something inside me broke.
I wanted to scream. To pull her away from that coffin. To make them both feel even a fraction of what my daughter had endured.
But I didn’t move.
I clenched my jaw, fixed my eyes on the casket, and forced myself to breathe—because if I spoke, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop.
My daughter, Emily Carter, had come to me weeks earlier… wearing long sleeves in the middle of summer.
“I’m just cold, Mom,” she said.
I pretended to believe her.
Other times, she smiled too brightly—eyes glassy, like she had cried and quickly wiped it away.
“Ethan’s just stressed,” she kept saying, as if repeating it would make it true.
“Come home,” I begged. “You’re safe with me.”
“It’ll get better,” she insisted. “Now that the baby’s coming… everything will change.”
