I expect her little rebellion will be known now.

“I think that’s my wife,” I say.

A deputy who looks all of fourteen acknowledges me, as does another officer.

“This isn’t really happening,” I say, though I know it is.

“Sir, please come over here,” the fourteen-year-old says.

My gaze remains glued to the water and the bobbing figure of my beautiful wife.

“What?” I ask, confused.

“Here,” he repeats. “Come here.”

Briefly all eyes are on me. Briefly, because it is almost impossible to take your gaze away from what you likely have never seen in your life. Or ever wanted to see.

Crying is foreign to me. Really. And yet in that moment when I see the anguished face of a teenage girl, tears streaming down her cheeks, I find my own eyes start to leak.

Another officer puts his hand on my shoulder.

“I know this is rough,” he says. He’s older and might actually know how hard it is to see your wife, the mother of your only child, floating like a discarded mannequin on the inky saltwater surface of Hood Canal. She looks so white. She’s chalk. She’s a doll made of chalk. A crime-scene tech arrives to document everything she can before the body is removed from the scene.

“Do you need me to call someone for you, sir?”

I look up. “My in-laws. Sophie’s parents.”

“Are you sure it’s her?”

“Even from here I can see her tattoo. It’s her.” My fingers find their way to my eyes, and I quickly wipe my tears. “I saw they’d found a body on Facebook. My in-laws don’t have a Facebook account, but they might know someone who has. Need to tell them. She’s their only child.”

The deputy nods and leads me to an ambulance that arrived before I did. He goes to confer with another officer while I sit on the back of the vehicle. There was no need for an ambulance. Sophie wasn’t going to be saved. She was utterly and completely dead.

“Sheriff’s detectives are on their way from Shelton,” he says. “Unless you feel strongly about calling your wife’s parents, we’ll have local law enforcement make a notification. But despite the tattoo, we’re going to need you to make a positive ID.”

“I did,” I tell him. “It’s her.”

“Right,” he says, his voice even, “but we need you to see more of her.”

“She’s my wife,” I say. “I know her body like my own.”

“I’m sure you do. In this instance, sir, we need you to look at her face. All right? They are bringing her out of the water now. Before we prepare her for travel to the morgue, we’ll have you come up and look at her. Okay?”

I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want to see her face. I’d like to remember her as she was before spending a night in the water.

“Fine,” I say. “I guess I can do that.”

“Good,” he says. “Stay right here.”