The woman who answered the door was wearing purple sweatpants and a sweatshirt that said Kiss Me I’m Contagious. She looked like she’d been asleep for years and only recently woken up to do some drugs. Her eyes had a sadness that looked like it was from nightmares.

“You must be her kids,” she said. “You need to see for yourselves.”

Kids? I frowned but said nothing.

She pointed up the stairs behind her.

“Upstairs?” Abe said. “She’s still there?”

“We didn’t know what to do,” she said. “We didn’t …” She shook her head. “You need to see it for yourself.”

The stairs were covered with dust and littered with empty beer bottles. They made a trail like scattered bread crumbs in the forest. There was a syringe perched on the banister. The bathroom door was closed, and somebody had wedged a chair under the handle to show it shouldn’t be opened. It looked like someone was being prevented from escaping. Abe kicked it out. The door swung.

She was naked in the tub. The water wasn’t red. It was brown. Her head was tilted back against the wall like she was napping. Her eyes were closed. Her skin was ghost-pale and creased into folds: her chin, her belly. Every wrinkle was a stitch that had come unsewn. Her mouth hung open to show the edges of her teeth and the curved bluish belly of her tongue. One arm disappeared into the murky water and the other dangled over the side, wrist sliced deep enough to show white moments of bone under the skin. Her fingers dangled down against the floor. Ants crawled up her nails, along her palm.

I walked to the tub, dropped to my knees and heaved. My stomach rose against my lungs. I felt the warmth of vomit in my throat but not my mouth.

Abe stood behind me. He said, “She didn’t do this.”

I shook my head. I didn’t say anything.

He said, “When did she do this?”

I was quiet. Still looking. Still wagging my head.

“She’s just been lying here?” he said. “All night?”

I twisted around. “Abe,” I said. “Oh, Abe.”

“Abe what? What the fuck?” He grabbed my hair and pulled up my head so I was eye level with her body. “You have to look.”

I looked at the arm, Tilly’s arm: its streaks of brown blood, its wet show of slivered muscle and wishbone. I looked away. I felt the warmth again, of vomit rising. This time I could feel it in my mouth.

What happens to a body after it dies? This was something we had to figure out.