Nine months pregnant, I stood on an icy overlook in Glacier National Park and begged my husband to take me home. A few seconds later, I fell. As I lay on a ledge in the snow, I heard him laugh and say, “For fifty million dollars, she better be.” » He planned a magnificent funeral for me. He simply never checked what was inside the coffin.
PART 1: The ledge
The moment Brandon’s hand hit my back is etched in my memory.
One second I was begging him to take me home. The next day, my boots slipped on the frozen rim of a viewpoint above McDonald Creek, deep in Glacier National Park, on the second Saturday in January.
“Brandon, please. I can’t feel my feet. The baby has been quiet all morning. I want to go back to the car.”
He smiled at me like he did when we were dating. Soft eyes. Easy voice.
“Just one picture, Nat. For the nursery wall. Then we’ll go there.”
I turned towards the view.
That was all it took.
I screamed his name as the ground disappeared beneath me. He didn’t hold out his hand. He didn’t even pretend to try.
He smiles.
“You and the baby won’t suffer for long.”
Then I fell.
I don’t remember the whole drop. I remember the whiteness and sound of my own breathing, then a jolt that knocked all thoughts from my head. I had landed on a narrow shelf of rock and packed snow, about thirty feet below the edge. The pain spread through my ribs and into my left hip, deep and heavy.
Before I even checked myself, both of my hands were on my stomach.
“Please,” I whispered through chattering teeth. “Stay with me, baby. Please stay with me.”
I was thirty-seven weeks pregnant. We had already chosen his name. Samuel, after my father.
The wind destroyed the canyon and threw snow in my face. I could barely breathe as voices came down from the cliff above me, and one of them belonged to a woman I knew all too well.
Gretchen Lowe.
Brandon’s “executive assistant.” The woman who brought a gift basket to my baby shower three weeks earlier. An organic lotion, a knitted hat, a signed card I can’t wait to meet him!
“Is she dead?” » Gretchen asked.
Brandon gave a soft laugh that scared me more than the fall.
“For fifty million dollars, she better be.”
Every part of me stopped.
Suddenly the whole trip took on a horrible meaning.
The “babymoon” cabin he had booked as a surprise. The empty trail on a day when the park service had issued a winter weather advisory. The way he’d grabbed my phone at the trailhead and put it in his own pocket: “No signal here anyway, baby, I’ll keep it dry.”
And life insurance.
Six months earlier, after my father’s death, I had inherited his majority share in Mercer Outfitters, the outdoor equipment company he had started from a single store in Missoula. Our attorney recommended a broad policy to protect the company. Brandon, who was our operations manager, sat next to me at the kitchen table and walked me through the paperwork.
“It’s just responsible planning,” he’d said, rubbing my shoulders. “For Sam.”
Fifty million dollars. Brandon as sole beneficiary.
My husband didn’t get angry on that mountain.
He brought me there on purpose.
Eventually their voices faded away and all I heard was wind. They let me freeze.
For almost two hours, I drifted. I tried to shift my weight and almost passed out from the pain in my hip. Snow piled up on my coat. My fingers stopped hurting, which scared me more than when they had hurt.
Every time I felt like I was giving up, I would press my palm against my stomach and talk to him.
“Your grandfather said that Mercers don’t stop on a track. Did you know that? He said that every time I wanted to turn around.”
Then, through the numbness and fear, I felt something move beneath my hand.
A kick.
Strong. Stubborn. Alive.
I laughed or I sobbed – I still don’t know which.
That little movement gave me back something that Brandon had tried to take. I fought for one more breath, then another.
And that’s when I remembered my wrist.
Under my glove, under my coat sleeve, was the smart watch my sister Joanna had sent me in the mail for Christmas. I rolled my eyes as I opened it. Jo, I don’t need an activity tracker. I’m the size of a minivan.
She replied by text: It’s not for fitness. It has fall detection and emergency SOS. You are pregnant and living in Montana. Do me a favor.
Brandon had taken my phone.
He had never asked about the watch.
I didn’t know if it worked. I didn’t know if anyone was coming. I just held my stomach and counted the kicks.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.
Then a beam of light swept across the snow.
The rotors thundered through the storm. A helicopter emerged from the gray, struggling against the wind, and a man in a red jacket fell onto a cable. He plopped down next to me, checked my pulse and his eyes went straight to my stomach.
“Ma’am, my name is Eli. I have you. Your watch called us. Stay with me, okay?”
I grabbed his jacket with what little strength I had left.
“My husband did this.”
His expression changed instantly. “Your husband?”
“He pushed me. Please.” My voice broke. “Don’t tell him I survived.”
For a long second, Eli looked at me. Then his radio crackled and a voice came that made my blood run cold.
“Be warned: the park dispatcher says the husband walked into Apgar Station forty minutes ago. He already reported that she had a fatal fall. He says she had no way of surviving.”
Brandon wasn’t waiting for anyone to find me.
He was already writing the story of my death.
I closed my eyes and made the first decision of my new life.
“Then let him continue to believe it.”
If Brandon wanted a funeral, I was going to give him one.
And while he stood next to my coffin, pretending to mourn the woman he thought he murdered, I would fight to go back so I could see his face when the dead woman walked through the door.
