Chapter 1
PART 1:
“She’s gone.”
Eleanor Vance grabbed her son’s wrist and ripped his hand away from the coffin.
“Don’t make a scene.”
Ethan was still in uniform.
Dust from the airfield clung to his boots.
His medals sat crooked on his chest because he had not even gone home to change.
The second his plane landed, he had driven straight to the house where black wreaths hung on the door and white funeral flowers filled the living room.
His wife’s coffin sat in the center of it all.
Closed from the waist down.
Open at the top.
Her face looked peaceful in a way that made Ethan feel sick.
Because nothing about this was peace.
He stumbled toward her like a man walking through fire.
His knees hit the carpet beside the coffin.
His hand reached for the polished wood.
That was when his mother yanked him back.
“She’s gone,” Eleanor said again, her face tight and cold. “Crying over her won’t bring her back.”
The room froze.
Relatives stood near the walls, silent and pale.
Julian, Ethan’s younger brother, watched from beside the fireplace with his hands folded in front of him.
His eyes were dry.
Too dry.
Ethan looked up at his mother.
“My wife died giving birth,” he said, his voice breaking. “And you’re telling me not to make a scene?”
Eleanor’s mouth hardened.
“You are a Major. Act like one.”
The words hit harder than a slap.
Ethan turned back to the coffin.
Tears fell onto his gloves.
Then, from somewhere upstairs, a newborn cried.
Thin.
Sharp.
Alive.
Ethan’s entire body went still.
He lifted his head.
“Where is my son?”
No one answered.
The baby cried again.
Louder this time.
Eleanor’s face did not move, but her eyes flicked toward the staircase.
Ethan stood slowly.
May you like
“I asked you where my son is.”
👉 But when Ethan noticed his wife’s clenched hand inside the coffin, grief turned into something far colder…
