own funeral, Lila.”
I stared at her, certain grief had distorted the words.
“I’m in labor.”
“Then call a car.
Step away quietly.
This day is not about you.”
The next contraction bent me forward.
I grabbed at the air, and Marcus appeared at my side.
For one trembling second, I thought he might help.
Instead, his fingers closed around my elbow like a clamp.
“Come on,” he said under his breath, smiling toward the mourners.
“Don’t make a scene in front of the board.”
“Marcus, I need a hospital.”
“You need to stop performing.”
He guided me backward through the mud.
To anyone watching from a distance, it might have looked gentle.
It was not.
His thumb dug into the tender inside of my arm hard enough to bruise.
“Let go,” I said.
He kept walking.
The grave, the casket, Adrian’s flowers, Celeste’s still face, all of it slid away behind the curtain of rain.
At the cemetery gate, Marcus released me with a small shove that sent my shoulder against the stone pillar.
“Order a ride,” he said.
“And Lila? Don’t call reporters.
Celeste has enough to manage.”
Then he walked back, opened his umbrella, and disappeared into the cluster of black coats.
I stood alone at the gate with my dead husband behind me and my daughter forcing her way into the world.
My phone battery showed seven percent.
My fingers were too wet to unlock the screen.
I tried once, twice, failed, wiped my thumb on my coat, and finally got the emergency call open.
The signal dropped.
I cursed at the empty bars, something raw and ugly tearing out of me.
Another contraction came.
I remember the sound of it more than the pain.
The animal sound from my own throat.
The rain hitting the iron gate.
The distant murmur of the funeral continuing without me.
Across the road stood an old church with a parish hall attached, its side door propped open by a brick.
I did not think.
I moved.
Every step felt impossible.
My shoes sank into the grass.
My stomach tightened and released in waves that left me trembling.
Cars passed on the wet road, their headlights smeared in the rain.
No one stopped.
Inside the parish hall, the corridor smelled of floor wax and dust.
A red emergency light buzzed near the ceiling.
Somewhere, water dripped steadily into a bucket.
“Hello?” I called.
No answer.
I made it to the bathroom because there was nowhere else to go.
I spread my coat on the tile.
I tried calling again.
The phone connected just long enough for a dispatcher to say, “What is your location?” before the screen went black.
My battery died.
Panic rose in me so fast I nearly choked on it.
Then I heard Adrian’s voice.
Not really.
Not in the room.
On my phone, before it died, I had opened his last voicemail by mistake.
It had played for two seconds, just long enough for his recorded voice to say, “Lila, listen to me.
If anything happens—”
Then silence.
If anything happens.
That was what he had said the night before he died too.
He had come home late, soaked from rain, his face gray in the kitchen light.
He had kissed my forehead, then my belly,
