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Well, at least we aren’t calling 9-1-1 again.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Burke says.
“Are you sure it’s her?” Karen has gulped back her horror, her voice cut to a whisper. She’s reached out for my hand, and somehow found it.
If she goes down, I got her.
“That’s why we asked you here,” I say, and glance at Jeff. “We need a positive I.D.”
“I’ll do it,” Jeff says quickly, and gets up.
“I want to see her!” Karen bounces to her feet. “I want to see her, Jeff.” She has her hands pressed to her mouth, her breaths hiccupping.
I’m not sure about the wisdom of his agreement, so we follow them down the hall and I knock on the door.
The Medical Examiner, a man by the name of Kirchner is waiting for us and opens the door to allow them in. He introduces himself.
This part is new. Last time, neither parent identified her until after Karen visited the ER, and then, only Jeff confirmed his daughter’s identity.
Now, I’m glancing at Burke, staying close to Karen.
They approach a sheet-draped body on a gurney, and I easily remember Gretta on the pavement, pale, not breathing, her makeup smudged, as if she’d been crying. Funny that thought comes to mind. Crying, as if she’d been in a fight.
With the father of her child? I won’t ask the M.E. if he’s determined if she was pregnant. Not yet.
But it’s on my radar.
That and the cufflink Eve found. Last time we hadn’t been at the scene at the same time, didn’t talk, she didn’t find the cufflink and the clinic didn’t register on my radar.
I’m sure a thousand other tiny changes have already occurred, but it’s too late to stop them.
Sorry, Booker.
At least Gretta hasn’t been transferred yet to a body bag. The smell of formaldehyde and other preservatives sour the air, bouncing off the stainless-steel surfaces, the bone hard cement floor.
Jeff is still as he stands beside the body. I find it odd that Karen doesn’t reach for his hand.
Kirchner warns them, then pulls back the sheet.
Suddenly, I’m not watching them grieve over the body of their eighteen-year-old daughter. Instead, I’m in an updated version of this room, Eve’s hand in mine as we stare in horror at Ashley’s bruised body. Maybe it’s my recollection of the picture I saw in Booker’s file or…or maybe it’s an actual memory. But I can see her hair, muddied and wrenched free of her braids, her tiny lips, pale in death. I want to take her hand, run my thumb over it, urge her back to life.
Daddy’s here, honey.
My breath catches and, Oh, God, it feels like an actual memory, with the punch right in the middle of my sternum, every cell in my body wanting to scream at the swollen, battered visage of my beautiful daughter. Eve’s hand is in mine, tightening, then she utters a sound, not a scream, more of a rending of her spirit, her heart. A tearing from the fabric of her soul.
No wonder I lost us.
It. Was. Real.
It is a terrible, brutal, soul carving horror to imagine—experience—your own child’s death. The room begins to spin.
I haven’t rewritten anything, not yet, and a poison fills my body, every pore, every cell as I blink hard, trying to wipe the image away.
Acid lines my throat.
My daughter died, and I suddenly remember everything. The rank smell of the forest on her body, the cruel face of death, the way Kirchner—yes, still the same man, older, silent—waited for us to nod.
Yes. This is Ashley.
