Chapter 1 Chapter 1 They Said It Was My Fate

On Valentine's Day, I died at the spot where Henry Cadden and I once pledged our love. I was hit in the head by a falling cabin from the Ferris wheel. Two lives were lost in an instant. And where was my husband? He was in the very same cabin that had just killed me, locked in an embrace and kissing Sophie Lloyd at that last second when it dropped. "Mr. Cadden, if I hadn't moved so much, would she still be..." I hovered above, watching Sophie as she pressed herself tightly against him. Her voice was tinged with guilt as though she really felt sorry. I leaned in close to her ear and kept screaming, 'It's your fault! You kept moving, and that's why the cabin fell! If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be dead!' But of course, she couldn't hear me. "It's not your fault, Sophie," Henry murmured, holding her even tighter as if he feared I might rise from the dead and haunt them. "It's her fate. If it wasn't us in that cabin, someone else would've been. She was doomed either way.""I'm scared, Mr. Cadden.""Don't look. Let's get out of here." Henry lifted her into his arms and pressed her head firmly against his chest to shield her from the sight. Yet, she couldn't help herself. She glanced up one last time at my headless body lying there, and a faint, almost imperceptible smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Henry's profession made him no stranger to death. As a mortician, he handled it every day, and Sophie was the new beautiful intern who graduated from university in June. He once said she often asked some questions that seemed particularly dumb to ordinary people. "The new intern is such an idiot. In this line of work, you need someone smart and meticulous, someone you can trust with the final moments of a person's dignity." In the beginning, he would complain to me as soon as he got home that she was stupid and careless, and thought she was not qualified for this job. As time went on, his complaints about her continued, but his tone carried a hint of affection that hadn't been there before. "Sophie made another dumb mistake today. Good thing I was there to fix it. If I weren't around, what would she do?" Maybe it dawned on him that his comment had crossed a line, because he quickly looked up, searching my face for a reaction. However, I didn't flinch. In fact, I had known about his affair long before that moment, which was why my expression remained completely unchanged. I found out about his affair when Sophie sent me pictures, intimate ones, right after they slept together. 'Your husband doesn't love you anymore, Mrs. Cadden,' she had written in the message. 'He said you're nothing but a useless woman who can't bear children. He doesn't love you anymore. If you have any decency, you'll leave on your own.' I stared at those photos of their entwined bodies and I couldn't even be sure if she was lying just to push me out. "Is being a mistress something you're proud of?" My hands shook as I typed. My mind was blank, and I didn't know how to question her. At the end of the day, though, wasn't the real problem Henry? 'The one who is unloved is the mistress,' she replied smugly. "You're old now, Mrs. Cadden. You're out of touch." Her cruel words stuck with me. A 'useless woman who can't bear children.' I thought that maybe this was why Henry had cheated on me. Maybe if I had given him a child, things would have been different. We had been together for ten years and married for eight, but I had never gotten pregnant because one side of my fallopian tube was blocked. We both wanted a child so badly. We even set up a nursery, painted the walls, and bought a crib. So, I started taking herbal medicine in secret, hoping that I could give him a surprise. The medicine was bitter and smelly, so I pinched my nose and drank it mouthful after mouthful, as if a baby would miraculously come. God helped those who helped themselves. When I realized I hadn't gotten my period in three months, I quietly took a pregnancy test. The moment I saw those two pink lines, I screamed and cried with joy alone in the bathroom. I was finally going to be a mother! But alas, my baby would never get the chance to be born into this world.

Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Ferris Wheel

After Henry dropped off the frightened Sophie at her home, he finally remembered to return to our house. "Isabella, pour me a glass of water!" That was his habit. He always needed a warm glass of water the moment he got home. He once told me that the temperature inside the funeral home was so low that only the warmth of water made him feel the comfort of home again. However, the only response he received this time was silence. We had argued earlier that morning because of Sophie. "Isabella, Sophie's in the hospital with a fever. She's all alone, and as her teacher, I have to check on her." Watching him at the entrance, already slipping on his shoes, I was gripped by a terrible feeling that if he left, he might never come back. "The hospital has plenty of doctors and nurses. What can you do for her? And besides, it's Valentine's Day... you're really going to leave me home alone today?" I asked. Henry froze mid-step, looking at me like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I

Chapter 3 Chapter 3 No Longer the Man I Know

Henry didn't even notice I was gone. He finished washing up and went straight to bed without so much as a phone call or a message asking where I had been. 'I guess it's true. Once you have seen how much someone loves you, it's painfully obvious when they stop. You can sense it in a heartbeat,' I thought. Back then, if I didn't respond to his messages right away because I was swamped at work, he would blow up my phone with call after call. If I didn't answer, he would even drop everything to come to my office just to make sure I was safe. … "Isabella, no matter how busy you are, remember to text back.""I just need to know you're okay. You don't think I'm being annoying, right?""Next time, just send me a smiley face so I know you're safe. That's all I need." … But now? He couldn't even be bothered to send a message. The way we met was strange, too. It was because of my mother, a woman who had endured decades of domestic abuse before finally jumping off a high building, leaving