My shoulder hurt whenever I moved too quickly.
But I could walk.
Slowly.
Carefully.
I could walk.
The doctor told me I could likely leave the hospital later that day if the remaining checks were reassuring.
I should have been thinking about where to recover.
I should have been choosing someone safe to stay with.
Instead, my mind kept returning to Daniel.
What was he doing now?
What was he telling our neighbors?
Did he cry when he looked at the empty side of our bed?
Or did he smile?
That afternoon, Margaret called again.
Her tone was different.
“Claire, there’s something you need to know.”
I sat up carefully.
“What is it?”
“I received a call from someone helping Daniel make arrangements.”
“What arrangements?”
She hesitated.
“He wants to hold a funeral service.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
“A funeral?”
“Yes.”
“But they haven’t found a body.”
“I know.”
“And nobody has declared me dead.”
“I know that, too.”
I pressed the phone tightly against my ear.
“When?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
I stared at the wall.
Tomorrow.
Sunday.
Only three days after he’d pushed me into the river.
Daniel wasn’t waiting for confirmation.
He wasn’t waiting for the search to recover anything.
He was already arranging for people to mourn me.
I could almost see it.
The flowers.
The photographs.
The solemn music.
My husband standing at the front of the chapel, receiving condolences and pretending that my death had broken his heart.
And suddenly, a thought began to form.
A thought so bold that I almost laughed.
“Margaret.”
“Yes?”
“Where is the funeral being held?”
“The chapel on Oak Street.
Why?”
I looked down at my hands.
They were bruised, scraped, and trembling slightly.
But they were my hands.
They had pulled me out of the river.
They had kept me alive.
And now they were going to open a door Daniel believed I would never walk through again.
“Because,” I said quietly, “I think I should attend.”
There was a long silence.
Then Margaret whispered, “Claire, what are you planning?”
I looked at my reflection in the dark hospital window.
For the first time since the fall, I didn’t see only a frightened woman.
I saw someone my husband had never really known.
“I’m going to my own funeral.”
Chapter 3: PART 3: The Funeral He Planned for Me
The first person who told me I was being reckless was Detective Ortiz.
The second was my best friend, Nora.
The third was Margaret Reed.
Unfortunately for all three of them, I had already made up my mind.
“I’m not asking the police to arrange some dramatic trap,” I told Detective Ortiz when she visited my room that Saturday afternoon.
“I know this is a criminal investigation.”
“Then you know you don’t need an audience to tell the truth.”
“Yes.”
“And you know confronting him could put you in danger.”
“Yes.”
She folded her arms.
“Then help me understand.”
I took a moment before answering.
Because until that morning, I hadn’t fully understood it myself.
“I keep hearing his voice,” I said.
“Not just the words he said before pushing me.
I hear him calling for help afterward.”
She remained quiet.
“He sounded devastated.
If I hadn’t known what he’d just done, I would have believed him.”
“Claire—”
“That’s what frightens me.
Not that he’ll get away with it forever.
I know you’re investigating.
I know there are medical records and my statement.
But right now, everyone we know believes him.”
My throat tightened.
“My mother’s friends believe him.
My neighbors believe him.
People who watched us get married believe he’s suffering.”
I stared at the pale blue blanket covering my legs.
“And he’s going to stand in front of them tomorrow and talk about how much he loved me.”
Detective Ortiz leaned forward.
“You survived something terrible.
You don’t owe those people a public explanation before you’re ready.”
“I know.”
“You can let us handle Daniel.”
“I intend to cooperate with everything you’re doing.”
“Then why the funeral?”
I swallowed.
“Because I spent two years letting him speak for me.”
The words surprised me.
But once they were out, I realized they were true.
Daniel had answered questions directed at me during dinner parties.
He had explained my opinions to strangers.
Whenever we disagreed, he spoke with such confidence that I began questioning my own judgment.
He was the one who told friends I was overly cautious about money.
He was the one who joked that pregnancy made me emotional.
He was the one who always knew how to tell a story so that he sounded patient and reasonable.
Now he was telling the story of my death.
And in his version, I had been a careless pregnant woman who wandered too close to a cliff.
I couldn’t bear the thought of letting that become the only version my family ever heard.
“He thinks he gets the final word,” I said.
“I want him to see that he doesn’t.”
Detective Ortiz studied me for a long moment.
Then she sighed.
“The investigation is moving forward whether you attend or not.
The sheriff’s office is pursuing your account and collecting corroborating evidence.
I’m not going to promise how quickly they’ll act.”
“I understand.”
“If the service takes place and you choose to attend, you won’t go alone.
And if he comes near you, you leave it to us.”
I nodded.
“Agreed.”
She gave me a warning look.
“That doesn’t mean I think this is a good idea.”
“I know.”
She stood to leave.
At the doorway, she stopped.
“One more thing, Claire.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you need to get him to confess in front of a roomful of people.
What happened to you matters whether he admits it or not.”
I looked at her.
For the first time that day, I felt a little less desperate.
“Thank you.”
She nodded and left.
I sat quietly for several minutes.
Then I picked up the phone.
It was time to call Nora.
Nora Ellis had been my best friend since college.
She was the person who knew where I kept my spare keys, which foods made me sick during the first months of pregnancy, and how badly I still missed my mother.
She had also been my maid of honor.
When I called her, she answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
Her voice sounded exhausted.
“Nora.”
There was silence.
Then a sharp intake of breath.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Claire.”
Another silence.
“That’s not funny.”
“Nora, it’s me.”
I heard something fall on her end of the line.
Then she whispered, “Claire?”
“I’m alive.”
She began crying.
Not quiet tears.
The kind of crying that comes from holding grief in your body until you can no longer contain it.
I pressed the phone to my ear and cried with her.
For almost a minute, neither of us said anything coherent.
Then she asked where I was.
I told her the hospital.
She arrived less than forty minutes later.
The moment she entered my room, she stopped so abruptly that the bag in her hand swung forward.
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