Chapter 2 - Funeral Lilies
Three days earlier, Eleanor had arrived at my house carrying lilies.
White lilies.
Too many.
A funeral amount.
I remember thinking that before I understood why.
She stood on my porch in her cream coat, pearls shining at her ears, holding the flowers like an offering and a weapon.
“Emily,” she said.
Her voice was soft.
Too soft.
I opened the door with one hand under my belly.
At eight months pregnant, every movement had become negotiation.
My back hurt.
My feet were swollen.
I had been counting the days until Jack came home on leave, though the date kept changing because deployments do not care about nursery calendars.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Eleanor looked past me into the house.
“May I come in?”
No.
That was what my body said.
But Eleanor was Jack’s mother.
And I was tired of being accused of keeping her son’s family at a distance.
So I stepped aside.
She walked into the Savannah kitchen she had criticized since the day Jack and I bought the house.
Too white.
Too bright.
Too modern.
Not enough history.
Not enough Mercer.
That was Eleanor’s favorite insult.
Not enough Mercer.
As if our home needed to kneel before her last name.
She set the lilies on the table.
Then removed a folded document from her handbag.
My eyes went to the Army seal first.
My heartbeat changed.
“Eleanor.”
Her hand covered mine before I touched the paper.
“I need you to sit down.”
The kitchen tilted.
“No.”
“Emily.”
“No.”
She pulled out a chair.
My knees weakened before my mind agreed.
I sat.
She placed the document in front of me.
The words blurred at first.
Then sharpened into something my soul rejected before my eyes finished reading.
Captain Jack Mercer.
Killed.
Official notification.
Deployment.
Condolences.
My hands went numb.
“No,” I said.
Eleanor bowed her head.
“I am so sorry.”
I stared at the paper.
“This isn’t how they tell spouses.”
I said it automatically.
Not because I knew procedure perfectly.
Because somewhere, through every military-wife briefing, every family-readiness email, every late-night anxiety search I had forced myself not to do, I knew death did not arrive as a folded paper in a handbag.
But grief is a predator.
It eats logic first.
Eleanor sat across from me.
“The official officer came to my house first because Jack’s emergency contact records were outdated.”
“That’s not true.”
“He never fixed them after the wedding.”
“He did.”
“Emily, please don’t fight me right now.”
Fight her.
My husband was supposedly dead, and already my disbelief was being called conflict.
I reached for my phone.
Eleanor placed her hand over it.
“Don’t.”
I looked at her.
“I need to call the unit.”
“You need to breathe.”
“I need to call—”
“You are eight months pregnant. Do you want to harm the baby with stress?”
That stopped me.
She knew it would.
The baby moved under my hand, a slow roll beneath lavender cotton.
A boy.
We had not told Eleanor the name.
Jack wanted to wait until he came home.
“Something just for us,” he said over video call, smiling through a bad connection. “My mother turns every name into a family referendum.”
He was right.
Eleanor had already rejected half a dozen names we never offered her.
Mercer men need strong names.
Mercer boys should not sound soft.
Mercer blood carries responsibility.
Blood.
May you like
Legacy.
Control dressed as tradition.
