We arrived at Chloe's funeral.
The funeral was held at a small, quiet funeral home tucked away in the suburbs.
The moment Chloe's mother spotted me, her face instantly darkened.

"Why did you bring her?"
Her voice was loud and harsh, cutting through the muted atmosphere and drawing the stares of the small gathering groups of relatives and friends.
"My daughter is dead, and you bring this person to disturb her final rest?"
I remembered Chloe had a friend who was a streamer.
Sure enough, even at the funeral, the young woman hadn't put her phone down, and the faint glow of a live stream was visible.
"See?" Ethan shot me a look of pure disgust. "I told you not to come. Now you've upsetting everyone."

I ignored him, my gaze shifting past Chloe's mother to the little girl partially hidden behind her.
Sophie, Ethan and Chloe's five-year-old daughter.
Sophie glared up at me with unnerving venom.
"Uncle Ethan," she chirped sharply, startlingly mature for a child, with no trace of innocence and dripping with spite.

"Is this your wife? She's nowhere near as pretty as my mom."
Her words were an exact echo of what she'd said in my last life, when Ethan had brought her home for the first time.
"Yeah, honey, this is Claire,"
Ethan answered, his voice softening absurdly, as he took Sophie's hand and gently tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear.
"She's going to be your new mommy."
"Wait a minute, Ethan," I snapped coldly.
"'New mommy'? What exactly do you mean by that?"
He grabbed my hand patiently.
"Sweetheart, we agreed we weren't having children of our own. But now Chloe's gone, leaving Sophie and her grandma struggling. We should adopt her."
I wrenched my hand free.
"No! Absolutely not! I chose a child-free life because I don't want to raise a child. And now you want me to raise Chloe's child? What are you really trying to do, Ethan?"
Ethan's face flushed with embarrassment, then stiffened with anger.
He drew himself up, playing the martyr for the audience.
"Claire! How can you be so cruel? This child has just lost her mother! She's practically an orphan! Do you have no compassion at all?"
"And another thing," he continued, his voice rising pointedly,
"it was your choice to be child-free. It was you who insisted I get a vasectomy. If it weren't for your demands, would I have chosen not to have children?"
His words hit the crowd like a spark.
Whispered exclamations and pointed fingers immediately turned my way.
"...Heartless! Forced him to get snipped... cutting off his line!"
"...Who could be that cruel? It's just a little girl... won't take much. How arrogant!"
I met their judgmental stares with a cold glare of my own.
"If it's so straightforward, why don't you guys whispering adopt her then?"
The whispers stopped abruptly.
"And let's be very clear about something else, Ethan," I said, my voice cutting through the sudden silence.
"You didn't get that vasectomy because of me. You got it because your sperm motility was critically low. Don't try to pin that on me."
Ethan stood speechless, utterly humiliated before everyone, his face darkening like thunderclouds.
"Claire, you're beyond unreasonable. I can't even talk to you right now."
With that, he turned on his heel and stalked into the main hall of the funeral home.
Seeing Ethan disappear, Chloe's mother quickly caught the eye of someone near the front, motioning for the funeral to begin.
A cold smirk touched my lips.
As if I'd let them carry out their little charade unhindered.
Suddenly, the doors swung open.
Several men and women in stark white medical coats walked in briskly.
"Excuse us," the lead figure announced, his voice clinical.
"We're from the Regional Organ Procurement Organization. We have verified that Ms. Chloe Evans was a registered organ donor. We received notification of her passing. We are here for organ recovery."
He paused, scanning the stunned faces. "We need to move her organ immediately."