He pulls hard on the drawer beside us, bending with his knees, until it extends fully. A white cotton sheet covers the cadaver that slides out. Cold temperatures have kept decomposition at bay, but an underlying smell pricks my nostrils, standing the hairs of my neck on end. When I identified my parents, it was from behind glass and in the presence of a police officer—nothing remotely this intimate. Questions I haven’t allowed myself to consider since stepping into Angela’s apartment resurface. Is she cold? Is she happy? Is she at peace?

The director turns to me, tilting his head to the side. “I give you a moment.”

A click of the door seals me in alone with a room full of death. I stare at the slopes and valleys of this woman’s shell. A metallic taste tickles the back of my mouth.

It could be Angela. It could be anyone. Angela and I are above average in height, five foot six, with medium builds. I’m heavier in the hips, and she’s always been busty, but no one would notice this except for us. Is there a unique detail to Angela’s body that marks her as different from anyone else? Valentin’s question rang in my ears for days after our phone conversation, along with my stuttering lie: I—I don’t know.

We share a birthmark. In the most unobtrusive of places—only a select number of people would see it.

I lift the sheet to peek underneath and hesitate, struggling between total revulsion at being so close to a cadaver and the terror of discovering that it’s Angela. The steady thrum of the ventilation system shuts off; silence engulfs the space. A smell like waterlogged bread left to rot at the foot of a restaurant pier rises, mingling with the vanilla. I clear the sheet from the body, ripping the bandage off in one swift motion.

Ash-colored flesh fills my vision, mottled from long-term submersion in water and exposure to the appetites of fish—chunks of skin missing sporadically throughout; a nipple chewed halfway off. Dark hair rests in tangled clumps that reach the elbows. The face is almost nonexistent. An ear that was once pierced multiple times from cartilage to lobe hangs by a single flap of skin. The lips are gone, straight teeth laid bare. The eyes, mercifully, are closed. I won’t bother verifying they are brown. A hole marks the forehead above dark eyebrows. The gunshot wound.