Chapter 1The Gown Arrived After My Funeral

Harrison was on FaceTime, grinning as he bragged about picking up an extra five hundred dollars working off-the-books construction shifts this month.

On my end of the screen, I was smiling, gently guiding our four-year-old son Sammy’s trembling thumb onto the purple ink pad, pressing his print onto an organ donor authorization form.

Harrison stood inside an artisanal patisserie downtown, angling his camera toward the glass display case, asking me which cake we should get for our wedding anniversary.

Beneath the sterile hospital sheet, my other hand was curled around an unlabelled plastic bottle of concentrated agricultural pesticide I had traded my last winter coat for.

"So, babe," Harrison said, his handsome face lit by the warm glow of the bakery, "I’ll bring home the triple-chocolate mousse tomorrow. Let’s finally get some real food into you and Sammy, okay?"

"Sounds wonderful," I said softly.

I hung up with a gentle smile.

Sitting on the edge of the cot, I gathered Sammy’s cold, hollowed-out little body against my chest, uncapped the bottle, tilted my head back, and swallowed every last drop.

Harrison didn’t know.

The pediatric donor heart Sammy needed never came.

And the gnawing agony in my abdomen was no longer an ulcer—it was stage-four gastric adenocarcinoma, completely beyond repair.

As the caustic chemical hit my stomach and my knees gave out, the phone I had dropped on the bedside table lit back up. The FaceTime call hadn’t actually disconnected; the background audio buzzed sharply through the tiny speaker.

"Harrison, man, you spoil Gia way too much," one of his buddies was chuckling in the bakery. "The donor match cleared a week ago through Hayes Memorial’s private network. Why keep Audrey in the dark? And her stomach issues—one afternoon of Hayes Capital’s trading profit could fund her treatment eight hundred times over. Why make her suffer until tomorrow?"

The friend paused, laughing. "All for this stupid gold-digger test?"

Harrison’s easy, careless chuckle drifted through the line. "Gia made a bet with me. Besides, it’s good for Gia to see once and for all how loyal Audrey is to me."

A woman’s petulant voice cut in—Gia Mercer, the girl Harrison had grown up with in private schools and country clubs. "Don't act so cocky, Harrison! Who says she won't pack up your kid and run off with some hedge-fund guy tonight?"

"She stayed in that squalor for three straight years without packing her bags," Harrison replied, his voice brimming with arrogant pride. "Why would she run tonight? She’s at home right now, waiting for me to bring back her chocolate cake."

"God, you are infuriating!" Gia protested playfully. I could hear the soft thuds of her manicured fists against his chest.

Harrison laughed, catching her wrists. "All right, all right. Five million in Bergdorf Goodman store credit to settle the bet. Happy now?"

The sound of their collective laughter spilled from the speaker, bright and buoyant.

I lay twisted on the thin mattress, dark arterial blood spilling past my lips, soaking through the coarse cotton pillowcase.

There was a heart.

There was money. There had always been an ocean of money.

Our three years of counting nickels, of eating canned beans and splitting generic pain relievers, had been nothing more than an amused billionaire's parlor game.

Harrison had prepared for my unwavering devotion.

He had prepared for me to break and chase after a wealthy benefactor.

The only thing he never prepared for was that Sammy and I would choose to stop being his burden altogether.

...

"Sammy... do you hate Mommy?"

Minutes earlier, inside that bleak room, I had held Sammy’s translucent little hand. Beside the bed stood two transplant coordinators, their expressions carved from stone, waiting for his pulse to cease so they could recover what viable tissue remained.

Sammy had managed a tiny, breathless smile, shaking his head against the pillow. "If Sammy goes to sleep... Mommy and Daddy won't have to work until your backs hurt. And the nurse said my parts can help three other kids beat the monsters. Sammy is the strongest boy... right, Mommy?"

My chest had heaved with a silent, shattering sob. "Yes, baby. Sammy is the strongest boy in the world."

And just like that, Sammy slipped into the dark.

I had gathered his tiny, feather-light body into my arms, weeping tears that felt like liquid lead.

The heart had been there.

My baby didn't have to die.

Harrison...

Harrison Hayes.

I tried to scream his name, but only a wet, shredded rattle scraped past my throat. The pesticide was a furnace, tearing through my esophagus and rupturing my insides. Another wave of black-red blood gushed over my chin, pooling beneath my cheek.

My phone slid off the bed, landing faceup on the linoleum.

Through the haze, I heard Harrison’s friend gasp: "Holy shit, Harrison! Your mic is hot!"

"Damn it, turn it off! Did she hear?!"

Harrison’s casual voice cut in, completely unbothered. "Relax. When she’s looking after Sammy, she never touches her phone. Just end the call."

The screen went black.

My eyelids shuttered against the world.

Across town, Harrison slipped his phone into the pocket of his designer slacks.

His buddy clapped him on the shoulder, shaking his head in disbelief. "Man, I envy you. Playing broke for three whole years, living in that rat hole, and Audrey didn't flinch once. My ex dumped me after three days of flying commercial. Seriously, Harrison, it makes me sick how lucky you are."

Harrison turned a smug smile toward Gia. "I told you. She would never betray me."

Gia rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. "Maybe she already did and just didn't want to lose face."

Harrison chuckled, unwilling to indulge her petty jealousy any longer. He turned toward the door.

"Where are you going now?" Gia demanded, stomping her designer heel.

Harrison didn't look back. "To pick out Audrey's wedding gown."

He climbed into the driver's seat of his Aston Martin. "When I started this charade, the only ring I gave her was a bent tab off a soda can. Tomorrow, when I come clean, I’m giving her the real thing."

"Damn, look at him playing Prince Charming!" the guys cheered, piling into their cars. "Let's go see what kind of Vera Wang gown Hayes is buying his saintly wife!"

Inside the luxury bridal salon on Madison Avenue, Harrison inspected gown after gown, shaking his head at each one.

"Do you have anything in a smaller size?" he asked the consultant. "My wife... she’s very petite. Extremely thin."

The consultant looked perplexed. "Sir, this is a sample size zero. If an adult woman is any smaller than this, it borders on severe malnutrition."

Harrison’s chest tightened uncomfortably.

These past three years, Audrey had withered to nothing. Whenever he pretended to come home exhausted from hauling rebar on a construction site, she would scrape every scrap of chicken or egg onto his plate, leaving only plain broth for herself. The last time he held her hand, her knuckles felt like dry twigs.

"Tell you what, sir," the consultant offered kindly. "Bring your wife in. We can tailor the silhouette directly on her."

"She... isn't available today."

He wanted it to be an ambush of pure luxury—a fairy-tale reveal.

"Then use me!" Gia chimed in, twirling in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors with her chin held high. "I just finished that cleanse. My waist is basically identical to hers. Go ahead, fit it on me! I want that one over there!"