White lilies are supposed to mean peace.
That’s what the florist brochure said, back when Ethan still breathed and I still believed symbolism mattered more than paperwork.
Now the lilies blurred through my tears as I stood beside the polished casket, one trembling hand resting over my five-month pregnancy while the other clutched the edge of the pew. Not for comfort—for balance. Because grief wasn’t a soft thing.
It was weather.
It was standing in the middle of a storm while everyone around you insisted the air was perfectly calm.
The chapel was filled beyond capacity, but not with warmth.
Executives in dark tailored suits sat like a row of black stones, their posture too straight, their faces too neutral. Distant relatives wore carefully chosen expressions—sadness calibrated to be seen but not felt.
And security guards stood at each door, hands folded at their waists as though this gathering were a corporate negotiation disguised as a farewell.
I’d imagined a funeral filled with memories—someone laughing softly about the way Ethan always stole fries off their plate, someone crying while holding a photo of him as a boy, someone saying he mattered without attaching a price to it.
Instead, everything felt orchestrated.
Even the air.
Even the silence.
It had that polished quality that comes when rich people decide emotion is inconvenient.
The casket was a deep mahogany that reflected the ceiling lights. It looked expensive enough to make death feel like a purchase.
Ethan’s portrait sat on an easel beside it, smiling in a way that made my throat tighten, because it was the smile he gave me on quiet mornings when he’d walk up behind me, wrap his arms around my waist, and whisper something ridiculous just to hear me laugh.
That smile didn’t belong in this room.
This room belonged to Whitmore Industries.
To the Whitmore family.
To the same last name printed on the programs in elegant font, like a brand.
I stared at the letters until my eyes burned.
WHITMORE.
A name they guarded like a weapon.
A name they were now using like a gate.
I felt it in the way people looked at my hand on my stomach.
Not tender, not sympathetic—assessing. Counting. Measuring what my baby might cost them.
I had barely slept since the accident.
Every time my eyes closed, I saw headlights, rain, a guardrail in a flash of silver, then the silence that followed when the hospital doctor said, We did everything we could.
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