During farewells to his pregnant wife, a husband asked to see her one last time and noticed a movement that immediately alerted everyone.

The moment he asked for one last look.
The air inside the small crematorium outside Spokane seemed heavier than it should have been, as if grief itself had settled into the walls and refused to leave, while Andrew Halbrook stood by the closed casket, his hands resting on the polished wood, finding solace in the certainty that nothing in his life would ever be the same again.

A life cut short too quietly.
His wife, Lillian Halbrook, lay inside, her face softened by meticulous preparation, her blond hair styled as she always did when she wanted to feel serene, even though the world had betrayed her in the most ruthless way. She was seven months pregnant, radiant just weeks before, laughing heartily at the sound of the baby responding to music while Andrew pressed his ear to her belly at night.

The accident on the highway, made slippery by the rain, had been described to him in a calm and professional tone, the kind of tone one uses when one thinks that clarity will lessen the pain, and everyone agreed without hesitation on one point: there was nothing to be done.

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