The Heartbeat Beneath the Coffin

Chapter One: Coffin under the crystal chandelier

I had pictured my return home thousands of times in my mind. Elena trotted down the front steps to greet me, holding her pregnant belly in her hands. The entryway diffuser smells of her favorite lavender scent.

I placed my hands over the swell of her belly, feeling our unborn son kicking under her ribs. And she would laugh and laugh at me, saying that I was too dramatic to be moved to tears even before the baby was born.

During the eighteen months in Abu Dhabi, these images sustained me.

The projects there are absolutely miserable. The heat wave seemed to melt the steel. Concrete pouring has been repeatedly delayed. Investors from three time zones away growled angrily on the phone. For countless nights, I stayed alone in the half-baked tower, staring at the video call and looking at Elena’s pregnant belly that was getting bigger day by day through the screen. Guilt dug holes in my heart like worms.

But as long as the contract is finalized, our future will be guaranteed. That’s what I told myself at the time. My mother also advised me this way.

“You are working hard for this family,” she always said whenever I thought about returning to China early.

So I stayed. Until the final day of delivery. Until the moment you board your flight. Until the black car drove past the wrought iron gate of my Connecticut estate and I saw too many cars parked in the driveway.

That was no car to welcome me home. That’s a hearse. Before the driver could get out of the car, my stomach began to cramp violently. The front door was wide open. White lilies covered the entire foyer. People in black sobbing quietly at the bottom of the stairs.

And in the center of my living room, under the crystal chandelier, stood a mahogany coffin lined with white satin. Elena was lying inside. Nine months pregnant. Looks pale. Lifeless.

She was wearing the white lace gown she once joked made her look like a “ghost bride.”

My body froze. My mother stood quietly next to the coffin wearing a long black velvet dress and a pearl necklace. Her blond hair was combed meticulously, with not even a stray strand. Her eyes were dry with no tears.

“She and the baby died suddenly,” she said. “Don’t make a scene here, Daniel.”

The words didn’t penetrate my brain right away. They just hang in mid-air. Ridiculous. Just last night, Elena was on video smiling tiredly and tenderly at me, showing off the little yellow blanket she had hand-knitted for our son.

She also said: “Come home quickly. The sound of your voice will make him kick me.”

My brother Marcus stood at the bar with a glass of expensive scotch, wearing the faintest approximation of grief. His eyes gave him away.

“You’ve been gone too long,” Marcus said. “We’ve taken care of everything.”

I was like a drowning man walking under water, walking step by step towards the coffin. Elena’s hands were very cold, but not yet completely frozen. This is the first detail I notice with my professional training.

Before I went to Abu Dhabi, before I was in the boardroom, before I was dealing with real estate and trusts, I was an Army field medic who served for six years. I know what death is.

I know what shock is. I understand what drug sedation is. I moved closer. There was a bruise on Elena’s temple, half hidden by her black hair. There was another hidden shadow near her neck.

My mother came over quickly.

“Daniel.”

I simply ignored her. I lifted the white funeral cloth covering Elena’s belly. Just an excruciating second passed, and nothing happened. Then, the white lace moved slightly. Not because of the airflow. Not out of sadness either.

It was a fetal movement. Powerful. Really true. Still alive. The blood in my body boiled in a world of ice and fire. I grabbed Elena’s wrist. Found it. Faint. Ups and downs. And a pulse.

My mother’s hands gripped my shoulders like iron vices.

“Daniel, don’t go crazy! You are bringing shame on the family!”

I straightened up abruptly, causing Marcus to take a step back.

“Call an ambulance,” I roared, “She’s still alive, just sedated!”