“I’ll be right outside if you need me.” Detective Oshiro points to a desk that is only a couple steps away. “Please don’t remove anything from the evidence bags, and nothing can be taken from the room. If you see anything of value in your mother’s personal effects, let me know. I’ll make sure you leave here with it today.”

“Okay, thanks,” I say, checking my watch: 9:15 a.m. “I’ll be fast.”

Detective Oshiro nods and then closes the door after he leaves. I take a deep breath as I stare down at the box. Suddenly, this feels like a mistake. And I may not know exactly where that feeling is coming from, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

“You should take your time, Wylie,” my dad says. “We’re here now, and I don’t think you’re going to get another chance.”

He’s right. As much as I want to get this over with, I need to be thorough. It’s now or never.

I keep my eyes on the box itself for a minute. It looks brand-new, the top crisp, the label clean and clear. Name: Hope Lang. Date: February 8. Description of Matter: Automobile Accident. The ordinariness is both a relief and a disappointment. A tiny part of me did hope it might say Murder somewhere. Another part of me was dreading that, too.

As I lift the long lid from the box, I turn my head away, allowing a moment for the most awful of the ghosts to escape. I rub my palms against my jeans then to dry them and suck in some air as I turn back to the open box, bracing myself to see something truly horrifying, like my mom’s charred bones. But it’s just an ordinary box divided into two sections, one with hanging file folders, the second with a stack of evidence bags.

The bag on top holds something small and black and silver, like a hardened lump of mixed clay. It isn’t until I look closer that I realize it is a car key. Or what was once a car key, melted now beyond recognition. My stomach inches up into my throat. My dad was right—this is more awful than I thought it would be. Because now all I can think about is my mom liquefied. And Cassie, too. Everything and everyone I have ever loved reduced to a puddle—and then hardened into a shapeless rock.

I turn away from the evidence bags and toward the files, glancing over at my dad to see if he is watching me. I have a faint hope that something in his face will give me a real reason to stop. But his eyes are on his phone, reading something, an email or a text. His brow is furrowed as he begins to type. He is not going to rescue me from my own terrible idea.