I Fell From the Thirteenth Floor

I died with my unborn child inside me.

One body.

Two deaths.

Outside the emergency room, my mother-in-law, Gloria Voss, sat on the floor and cursed my name.

“That wicked woman,” she wailed, beating her thighs. “If she wanted to die, fine. But why take our Voss grandson with her?”

Grandson.

So it had been a boy.

My husband, Victor Voss, froze when he heard that.

For one second, something uglier than grief twisted across his face.

Not sorrow.

Not shock.

Hatred.

His eyes moved to the corner of the hallway, where our two daughters huddled together like frightened rabbits.

Eight-year-old Nora held five-year-old Lily against her chest.

They were shaking.

Victor looked at them as if they were the reason his precious son was dead.

I floated above them all, weightless and cold.

Apparently, ghosts could still laugh.

So I did.

The sound never reached them, but it shook through what remained of me.

Then the police arrived.

“Victor Voss,” one officer said, “you are under arrest on suspicion of intentional homicide.”

Gloria stopped crying.

Victor’s face went white.

The officer continued.

“The victim is your wife, Luna Hart.”

That made me laugh harder.

Gloria threw herself at the officers, shrieking that they could not take her son. She even bit one officer’s hand.

So they took her too.

Assaulting an officer.

Excellent.

For the first time in years, I felt something close to joy.

Because I knew exactly what had happened.

The scheduled files had gone through.

The surveillance videos.

The photos.

The notes.

Everything I had hidden in cloud storage and timed to send after my death had reached the police.

Victor thought he had finally silenced me.

He forgot the dead could still leave evidence.

I did not know how long a soul could remain in this world.

People always say that before death, your life flashes before your eyes.

That is a lie.

At least, it was for me.

Before my skull struck the pavement, I saw no childhood memories, no wedding day, no first kiss.

Only the open sky.

Only the birds.

Only the thought that once, I had been free enough to envy nothing.

But after death, memory stayed.

Every bruise.

Every scream.

Every word.

I remembered the night before I died.

Victor’s hand was around my throat.

“You have too many damn problems,” he snarled, pinning me to the sofa.

I was nine months pregnant.

My belly was so large I could barely breathe even without his fingers crushing my windpipe.

“If this one is not a son,” he said, “I swear I’ll make you regret it.”

I clawed at his wrist.

“Please…”

He slapped me twice.

My ears rang.

At the dining table, our daughters kept eating.

Nora’s hand did not pause as she picked up vegetables with her fork.

Lily lowered her head and shoveled rice into her mouth.

They were not heartless.

They were trained.

They had seen this too many times.

Victor dragged me by the hair to the table.

“Even dogs wouldn’t eat this trash.”

He swept every plate onto the floor.

Ceramic shattered.

Soup splashed across my dress.

Nora’s face turned red, but she did not cry.

Lily’s lips trembled, but she made no sound.

Together, they climbed down from their chairs and began picking up the broken pieces.

Then they hid in the bathroom.

Victor shoved my face into the spilled food.

Spit landed near my cheek.

Then he left.

Why had he beaten me that night?

Because I had asked whether he could go with me to my prenatal checkup.

That was all.

I lay on the floor for a long time.

When Nora and Lily came out, they tugged at my sleeve.

“Mommy,” Lily whispered. “I’m hungry.”

I could not get up.

So I called my parents.

When they arrived, my mother looked at my swollen face and sighed.

“You fought again?”

Again.

Like it was weather.

Like it was a bad habit.

Like it was something I had caused.

I nodded.

Then, for perhaps the hundredth time, I said,

“Mom, I want a divorce.”

My father’s hand tightened around his cigarette pack.

He looked at my belly, then put the cigarettes down.

He said nothing.

My mother fetched a wet towel and began wiping food from my hair.

“Couples fight,” she said. “Then they make up.”

I closed my eyes.

“Victor doesn’t fight with me. He beats me.”

“He is stressed. Business has been bad these two years.”

“He almost choked me.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“You always talk to him.”

My voice broke.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

My mother’s hand stopped.

When I opened my eyes, her expression had hardened.

“Then why did you marry him?”

The words hit harder than Victor’s slap.

“Marriage is not a game, Luna. You don’t marry one day and divorce the next. You chose him. You gave him children.”

“I was pressured—”

“You are thirty-five,” she snapped. “You have two daughters and another child in your belly. If you divorce, what man will want you?”

I stared at her.

The woman who gave birth to me.

The woman I had called when I could not stand.

The woman who was supposed to take me home.

She threw away the towel.

“If you divorce him, don’t come back to us. Your father and I cannot afford that shame.”

I remember the light leaving me then.

Not all at once.

Just a little.

Enough that I stopped begging.

My mother took my daughters with her.

My father lingered.

He opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Then he pressed a wad of cash into my hand and left without saying what he should have said years ago.

Come home.

He did not say it.

No one did.

So I went to the hospital alone.

The doctor looked at the ultrasound screen for a very long time.

Then she turned to me.

Her voice was gentle.

Too gentle.

“Mrs. Voss,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

I already knew before she finished.

“There is no heartbeat.”