“Did you leave a message?” Zach asked, voice hard, like I was the one with something to hide.

“No,” I said. “I was planning to call back later, but I got busy.”

“What about Izzy?” Land asked. “She got a cell phone?”

Zach nodded. “My old iPhone. A 5 or a 6.”

“A 6s,” Jenny said. “Black. It’s got a crack in one corner of the screen. A pink glitter case. Did you find it?”

Land didn’t answer, scrawled something on his notepad.

Jenny shifted back in her chair. The legs caught on the nappy carpet, and she pitched forward as she tried to stand. She put one hand on the table to steady herself. “I need to go home,” she said. “I can’t do this right now. Please. I’ve had enough.”

The second the words were out of her mouth, Land was standing, saying, “Sure, sure, we can talk more tomorrow.” Somehow I was pretty sure if I’d been the one asking for an end to the conversation, Land would have found a way to put me off, telling me only a few more questions, we’d be done soon.

I stayed seated as Jenny and Zach shuffled out behind me, no one meeting anyone’s eyes. I waited until they were out in the hall, Land shaking both their hands and patting Jenny on the shoulder, before I looked at Cal.

“You ready to go?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I want to see her.”

THREE

No, you don’t,” Cal said, quick as a whip. “Evie, trust me. You don’t.”

“I do,” I said.

Cal pushed off the wall, came toward me with hands outstretched. “Okay, well, at least wait until . . . after. When the funeral people have her cleaned up. Not now.”

“Now,” I said. “I need to, Cal. I have to.”

“It’s her, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Cal said. “I saw her. It’s Junie.”

I shook my head. It wasn’t that. I didn’t doubt that Junie was gone. Already I could feel a gaping hole in the world where she used to be. But I needed to see, to be a witness to what had happened to my daughter. I couldn’t live the rest of my life and not know, go on without having seen it with my own eyes. Junie had endured so much. The least I could do for her was endure this. “Let me see her, Cal.” That stubborn set to my voice that Cal had heard a hundred times before and knew better than to argue against. “I’m not leaving until you do.”

The bodies were down in the basement, in the embalming room. Cal and Land led me down the steps, the smell of formaldehyde hitting me in the face the second they pushed through the door into the hallway. It reminded me of high school biology, slimy frogs, split open and flayed, organs shimmering under too-bright lights. My vision swam, and I sucked in a deep breath through my nose, let it out slowly through my mouth.