PART 1
My husband called me dramatic when I couldn’t get up off the floor. My mother-in-law ordered everyone to keep eating, and his childhood friend burst out laughing.
Nobody noticed that blood was soaking into my hair.
And my three-year-old daughter was the only one who tried to save me.
It all happened at my mother-in-law Margaret’s birthday dinner.
I was carrying my little Ellie in my arms when I went to sit down. At that exact moment, Lacey, my husband Grant’s lifelong friend, yanked the chair away.
I fell backward.
I felt a brutal blow to the back of my skull. The large clip holding my hair snapped against the floor, and one jagged end drove into my head.
Then, nothing.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even call for help.
“Look at her!” Lacey cried between bursts of laughter. “She looks like a turtle on its back!”
The guests erupted in laughter.
My mother-in-law set her silverware on the table.
“Claire, can’t you even sit down properly? Did you have to ruin my birthday?”
Ellie began to cry and tried to lift me.
“Mommy! Mommy, get up!”
Grant looked at me with irritation.
“Lacey was just joking with you. Are you really going to lie there to make her feel guilty?”
Lacey pretended to wipe away a tear.
“I’m sorry, Grant. I didn’t know Claire was so sensitive.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he answered. “Lately she looks for any excuse to fight.”
My mother-in-law pounded the table.
“Leave her! When she gets tired of pretending, she’ll get up on her own. Let’s keep eating!”
And they did.
Nobody called an ambulance.
Nobody checked whether I was breathing.
Because I wasn’t breathing anymore.
My body still lay on the floor, but my consciousness floated above it.
I had died in front of my whole family.
And nobody knew.
Ellie dragged a chair over beside me.
“Mommy, it’s okay. I’m holding it for you. Now you can sit down.”
I reached out to hug her.
My hands passed through her small body.
That was when I understood I would never hold her against my chest again.
While the adults toasted, my mother-in-law started complaining.
“Other women have grandsons to carry on the family name. I only have a girl. And Claire won’t even give me another grandchild.”
Ellie stood by her legs.
“Grandma…” she whispered.
Margaret ignored her.
Lacey smiled.
“It’s true. Ellie’s already three. Claire should think about giving Grant a son.”
My husband took a sip of wine.
“Ever since Ellie was born, my wife only thinks about her.”
Those words hurt me more than the fall.
I remembered the night we found out we were having a girl.
Grant had kissed my belly and said, “Perfect. A little princess as beautiful as her mother.”
Now he sat there, not defending our daughter.
Ellie clenched her small fists.
“My mommy is good! She bought Grandma’s dress! She picked it out with lots of love!”
Then she tugged on Grant’s sleeve.
“Daddy, tell them Mommy is good.”
He pushed her hand away roughly.
“Children don’t interrupt when grown-ups are talking!”
Ellie stumbled against a chair.
I ran to her by instinct, but my arms passed through her again.
My girl went back to my body.
She laid her cheek against my motionless chest.
“Mommy, hug me…”
I had never stopped answering that request.
Until that night.
When the guests finished dinner, Margaret walked past me and nudged me with her foot.
“Still keeping up the show?”
No response.
Ellie, who had been stroking my hair, suddenly raised a hand.
Her fingers were stained red.
“Daddy… Mommy has blood!”
Grant didn’t even get up.
“Then get a napkin and wipe it off.”
The little girl ran from adult to adult, begging for help.
Nobody would listen.
Finally she came back and knelt beside me on the cold floor.
With a napkin, she began carefully wiping the blood coming from my head.
“Don’t cry, Mommy. Ellie’s here.”
When night came, everyone went to bed.
My mother-in-law turned off the lights.
Ellie found a blanket on the sofa and dragged it over to me. It was too heavy for her, but she managed to cover my legs.
Then she curled up beside me.
“Mommy, don’t be cold.”
I stayed there, kneeling next to my daughter, crying tears nobody could see.
A while later, Grant came down for water.
Ellie lifted her head at once.
“Daddy! Mommy still won’t wake up!”
He looked at the blanket and frowned.
“She’s still doing this?”
Then something happened that chilled even my soul.
From upstairs, Lacey called out sweetly:
“Grant, honey, are you going to be long?”
My husband smiled.
A smile he hadn’t given his daughter all night.
Ellie tried to stop him, but he went up the stairs.
The little girl followed.
I went after them.
When we reached the bedroom, I saw Lacey go to Grant, wrap her arms around his neck, and kiss him on the lips.
He didn’t pull away.
On the contrary.
He drew her against him.
Then Ellie pushed the door open.
“LET GO OF MY DADDY! HE’S MY MOMMY’S HUSBAND!”
And what Grant did next made me wish, for the first time since my death, that someone could hear me scream.
PART 2
Ellie ran to the bed and tried to pull Lacey away from her father.
“You can’t kiss my daddy! My daddy is married to my mommy!”
Lacey lost her smile.
“Ellie, stop acting like this.”
But my daughter kept tugging at her arm.
“Mommy’s downstairs! Mommy’s sick!”
Lacey tried to push her away.
Desperate, the little girl bit her hand.
“Ow!” Lacey screamed.
She shoved her so hard that Ellie fell against the edge of the bed.
I heard the thud.
I threw myself toward her, trying to protect her head, but my body no longer existed in the world of the living.
My little girl curled up in pain.
Grant sat up immediately.
For a second I thought he would rush to help her.
I was wrong.
First he took Lacey’s hand and examined the teeth marks.
“Did she hurt you?”
Lacey nodded, her eyes full of tears.
“It doesn’t matter. I know Claire doesn’t like me, but I never imagined she’d teach her daughter to attack me.”
My husband turned to Ellie.
“Come here!”
He yanked her up roughly by one arm.
“Who taught you to bite people?”
“Daddy, she was kissing you…”
“Be quiet!”
Ellie flinched.
Grant pointed at Lacey.
“Apologize right now.”
My girl looked toward the door.
“But Mommy…”
“I said apologize!”
Her father’s voice made her tremble.
I knelt in front of her.
“No, sweetheart. You don’t have to say sorry for defending Mommy.”
But Ellie couldn’t hear me.
In the end, she lowered her head.
“Sorry, Aunt Lacey.”
My heart broke all over again.
The little girl timidly grabbed Grant’s shirt.
“Daddy, I said sorry. Can we go help Mommy now?”
She said it with such sincere hope that it hurt to look at her.
She thought that if she obeyed, her father would finally listen.
But Lacey held a hand to her wrist.
“Grant, it hurts so much. I think you should get me something for the wound.”
He let go of Ellie.
“Go downstairs to your mother and stop bothering us.”
He shut the door.
My daughter stood still for a few seconds, staring at the wood.
Then she went down the stairs alone.
Every step was too high for her legs.
I walked beside her, holding out my hands uselessly in case she stumbled.
When she reached the dining room, she ran to my body.
“Mommy, I said sorry.”
She lay down next to me.
“But Daddy didn’t want to come.”
I kissed her forehead again and again, though she couldn’t feel it.
“I know, my love. You did everything right.”
Ellie touched my fingers.
“Mommy, your hands are really cold.”
She went to the sofa, found her pink coat, and laid it over my chest.
Then she dragged over another blanket and crawled under it with me.
At midnight, my mother-in-law came down for water.
Seeing Ellie curled up beside me, she clicked her tongue.
“Just as stubborn as her mother.”
She turned off the last lamp.
And left a three-year-old girl hugging her mother’s corpse.
The Call Nobody Wanted to Make
I don’t know how much time passed.
After I died, minutes stopped making sense.
All I could do was watch Ellie fight sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, she jolted awake again.
“Mommy…”
She touched my cheek.
“Are you better now?”
When there was no answer, she put her small ear against my chest.
She had learned that gesture playing with her teddy bear and a toy stethoscope.
But this time she heard no heartbeat.
The little girl frowned.
“Mommy, your heart isn’t going boom, boom.”
She sat up, frightened.
She looked toward the stairs.
And called again:
“Daddy!”
Nobody answered.
Then she remembered something.
Weeks earlier, we had watched a cartoon in which a boy called an ambulance.
I had explained that when someone was badly hurt, you had to ask the emergency services for help.
Ellie couldn’t read well.
But she remembered three numbers.
She took my phone from my pocket.
The screen was locked.
She tried to open it with my finger.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Finally it lit up.
I watched her press the emergency button.
“Mommy, I’m going to find a doctor,” she whispered.
But before she could finish dialing, Grant appeared on the stairs.
“Why are you still up?”
Ellie held up the phone.
“Daddy! I’m calling a doctor!”
He took it from her.
“Who taught you to touch your mother’s phone?”
“Mommy isn’t breathing…”
“Enough!”
My husband canceled the call and set the phone on a shelf.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Now go to sleep.”
Ellie began to cry.
“But Mommy won’t move!”
Grant looked at my body.
For the first time he came close enough to see my face.
I felt an absurd hope.
Please. Just touch my neck. Check for a pulse.
He crouched.
He reached out a hand.
But he never touched me.
“Claire, I know you can hear me,” he said coldly. “You’ve managed to scare our daughter. I hope you’re satisfied.”
He straightened up.
“If you keep this nonsense up tomorrow, I’m taking Ellie to my brother’s house.”
Then he went back to the bedroom.
He didn’t even notice that my lips had turned blue.
Ellie stayed beside me, watching the stairs.
When she was sure her father wouldn’t come back, she went to the sofa and hid under the blanket.
“Mommy, Daddy’s mad,” she whispered. “Don’t make any noise.”
The little girl believed she was protecting me.
She didn’t know nobody else could hurt me anymore.
Her, though, they could still destroy.
The Uncle Who Came Back Too Early
At seven in the morning, the doorbell rang.
Margaret opened it in a bad mood.
“Who comes at this hour?”
“It’s me, Mom.”
I recognized that voice immediately.
It was Owen, Grant’s younger brother.
He had left town for a university conference and wasn’t supposed to be back until noon.
He had a backpack over one shoulder and a box of pastries.
“I managed to catch an earlier train,” he explained. “Happy belated birthday.”
Margaret got her smile back.
“My boy! Come in, come in. I saved you some special pastries.”
Owen set his backpack by the door.
And then he saw my legs sticking out from under the blanket.
“Claire?”
No answer.
My mother-in-law huffed.
“Don’t even look at her. She’s been making a scene since yesterday.”
Owen came closer.
“Since yesterday?”
“Lacey played a little joke on her. She fell on the floor and decided to stay there to ruin the celebration.”
I watched Owen’s expression change.
He pulled back the blanket.
He saw my face.
Then the dark stain spreading across the floor beneath my head.
“What the hell…?”
He knelt.
He touched my neck.
He carefully lifted my wrist.
And went still.
“Mom… when was the last time Claire spoke?”
Margaret seemed irritated.
“You’re going to play along with her, too?”
“Answer me!”
It was the first time I’d ever heard Owen shout at his mother.
She stepped back.
“Yesterday. At dinner.”
Owen took out his phone and called 911.
“I need an ambulance and the police. An adult woman is unconscious, not breathing, and has signs of a serious head injury.”
My mother-in-law went pale.
“Police? What do you want the police for?”
Owen didn’t answer.
He was looking at the broken clip in my hair.
When he moved a few strands aside, his hand began to shake.
“My God, Claire…”
At that moment, Ellie came out from behind the sofa.
Her hair was tangled, her eyes swollen, her face streaked with dried tears.
Seeing Owen, she ran to him.
“Uncle Owen!”
He hugged her.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
