In my dream I am asked to ID your body but I cannot bear to enter that cold room, not even to confirm or deny. I know it’s you and I know I should give you back your identity by naming you, but your daughter is a coward (how else do you explain these past seven years?). I can barely even look at these words now, can hardly bring myself to polish them up from a draft of a draft; how could I possibly stand to see you laid out on that table like a thing that never lived? But I should have. I should have given you that dignity, at least. You didn’t deserve to remain anonymous in my dream any more than you deserved to remain alone in that room in a reality I have been too terrified to claim as mine. I was a coward, and it changes nothing to be told you knew I loved you. I should have told you then. I should have gone into that room. I should have named you.