I was surprised that the door to where Annie lay was glossy and I could see my face on its smooth surface, and I looked like the intruder I was. The body was on the floor. I didn’t know Louise was in the room. She must have hidden behind the door as I entered. I saw Annie’s feet first, small and shoeless. Her feet gleamed like polished wood. A rough blanket was pulled up to her chin. I could feel the prickle of heat in my armpits, a heat flushed my neck as I bent over her. I tried to pick her up, bending from the waist, but I couldn’t pull her to me. I knelt on the homemade bed, heard the dry rustle of cattails beneath my knees. As I was lifting her up from the floor the blanket slipped from her. She was naked. I scrambled to reach the blanket but was afraid of dropping her. I had to lay her back down to secure the blanket around her. I couldn’t help staring at her dark breasts, but after all these years I can remember only the white bones of her ribs pressing up through her brown skin, that I could count them, each rib, as if she was holding a full breath, as if she was still afraid she could be hurt. I had heard the dead were heavy but she was so light I felt she would lift from me, so light I seemed to be holding her spirit. When I looked up I caught a glimpse of Louise hiding behind the door, a small, skinny kid who’d just lost her mother. I carried Louise’s mother down that hall and down those steps. Annie had only asked for one thing, Grandma Magpie said, her daughter had asked to be buried in a homemade pine casket with a green satin lining. I helped my uncle build her coffin. I felt proud to be a man. I think that event sealed in me the desire to help others.