PART 2

The room went completely silent.

“My obituary?” I said.

Hailey pulled out her phone with shaking hands. She scrolled, then turned it toward me.

There was my face. My college graduation photo. Under it: “Natalie Brooks, 1991–2021. Beloved wife. Taken too soon by a car accident.”

A memorial page on a funeral home website. One I’d never heard of.

“He said you died two years before we met,” Hailey whispered. “He said he couldn’t talk about it. He cried.”

Jared tried to speak. Mr. Odom put a hand on his shoulder.

“Sir, you’re going to come with me.”

Then my contractions came so close together that Bettina said, “Okay, everybody out. This baby is coming now.”

My son was born at 6:14 p.m. Four pounds, one ounce. He went straight to the NICU.

Two hours later, two floors up, Hailey had a daughter.