How Does 'My Deceased Unborn Nephew' Explore Grief?

Ivory Collins had spent seven years as fiancee of Jacob Rodriguez, yet never received any love from him. It was not until her sister, the real daughter of her adoptive parents showed up, and was immediately loved by everyone including her fiance, that's when she realized her entire life had been a complete joke. Determined to not to live like a shadow of her sister, she broke up with him. To overcome the pain in her heart, she hit the bar and accidentally caught the attention of a mysterious man. That man turned out to be not only the most powerful man in the city but also her ex-fiance's uncle! "Mr. Alexander Rodriguez, can I know what's your intentions towards me?" Ivory raised her eyebrow with a questioning look. Alexander pulled her into his protective arms. "Very simple, I've an offer for you, how about becoming the aunt of those two cheaters?" Ivory was surprised by his offer. She had to admit, the idea of being an aunt was rather tempting!

She called him at two in the morning, wine-drunk and heartbroken, and told him everything. That her boyfriend of five years had been lying to her face. That she had built his business with her bare hands and he had been quietly cutting her out of it. That she was done being practical about love and intended to date every beautiful man she could find and she meant it. She did not mean to tell him he was on the list. Enoch Wade has been in love with his cousin since he saw her at her 19th birthday party. He has spent six years sending birthday gifts and keeping his distance and being exactly what she needed him to be, safe, reliable and family. The drunk call ends that strategy entirely. By morning she has an employment letter, a plane ticket, and three days to start over in London. What neither of them knows is that the tag that held them apart was never true. Some lines were meant to be crossed. some lines were never lines at all. My Dearest Beautiful Cousin — a forbidden romance

My in-laws were hit by a car crash. I called my husband, begging him to give me some money to pay the hospital bill. He said, "Oh, if you want money, just come out with it. That excuse is terrible!" He hung up on me. Despite how unfair it felt, I had to call him again. This time, a voice I was familiar with hit my ears. A woman's voice. "Chris, I got a bit too much sunscreen on my hand. Can I smear the rest on your abs?" Lovingly, my husband said, "You little troublemaker." His parents died that night. Overseas.

My son is dead. He dies in a cramped toilet cubicle after having his skull smashed in. My husband, the school principal, arrives on the scene. The first thing he does is carry his true love's son, the one who killed my son, into an ambulance. They hurriedly leave. Before his death, my son tells me, "Don't cry, Mom. I'm not sad that Dad doesn't believe me. It's enough that you do…" I call Joshua Tucker during my son's funeral. He roars angrily, "Kenny had to get two stitches on his arm because of your son! If you keep pestering me like this, I'll beat him up when I get home!" My son? I look at the gaping hole in my son's head, the one that won't ever bleed anymore. I shut my eyes. Yes, he's my son. My son is dead, Joshua. From now on, there's nothing between us.

By the third year of my marriage to Daniel Hawthorne, the war had already taken more than it ever returned, and this time it took his younger brother, Thomas Hawthorne. My sister-in-law, Eleanor, collapsed, and in the weeks that followed she tried to follow her husband into death— once with sleeping pills, once by the river beyond the officers’ quarters— only to be dragged back both times, each time clinging to me afterward as though I were the last thing keeping her grounded. I stayed with her, wiped her tears, and whispered that Thomas would want her to live, until the day she received the test results confirming she was three months pregnant, and the grief of losing her husband was slowly softened by the arrival of new life. I smiled too, believing grief had finally loosened its grip. That night, holding my own pregnancy test in my hand and thinking it was finally time to tell Daniel, I passed the study and heard his friend say quietly, “She’s carrying your child. You convinced the doctors to adjust the timeline so everyone would believe the baby belonged to your brother. Aren’t you afraid Margaret will find out?” Daniel didn’t hesitate. “She won’t,” he said calmly. “She loves me. She wouldn’t leave. I won’t let her know.” I didn’t step inside. I didn’t confront him. Instead, I opened the letter I had received weeks earlier— an official deployment order from the international medical corps, assigning me to a frontline war zone— and tapped Accept.

After I got pregnant, I witnessed my boyfriend's grandmother's death. She left behind a secret, and now, everyone who knows that secret is dead. First, it was my boyfriend's father who died. My boyfriend's mother followed soon after. Lastly, my boyfriend died too. He ended his life by overdosing right before my eyes. The media went wild. They dug obsessively for the truth. Again and again, the police summoned me for questioning. Online hate toward me was overwhelming. Everyone wants to know what the secret is. People claim I cursed my boyfriend's entire family to death, just to keep the secret to myself. I stay silent, never saying a word in defense of myself. On the seventh day after my boyfriend had passed, I spot someone at his funeral. At that moment, I place my hand on my swollen belly. I am utterly calm and at peace. It is time for me and my child to die too.