The City Still Breathing by Matthew Heiti

identification.’
    â€˜Who is it?’
    â€˜I know what you’re thinking.’ Bean sprouts hanging out of her mouth. ‘But it’s not him.’
    â€˜You don’t know that.’
    â€˜You know what you are, Martha – obsessed .’ Waving the dying inch of her eggroll like a sceptre. ‘And if it is him – y’know what? I’d be glad. Because maybe then you could get some closure – closure on these last seven years, closure on the whole thing.’ Closure like some sort of buzzword she heard on Donahue last week and been dying to use, closure like the screen door banging when Van walked out of it that day he got into his car and took off for the store, closure like the screen door banging when Slim walks out of it every morning, screen door banged so much the hinge’s gone off and it doesn’t close at all anymore, hangs open just that little bit, just enough to let the ants in, like the screen door on her insides hanging halfway between open and closed. That monkey smiling up at her from the placemat, wrinkling as she drops a couple of tears down onto its stupid face. Just a couple to let her know she’s still got them.
    â€˜I want to go see him.’
    Lucy spitting eggroll. ‘What?’
    â€˜I need to see if it’s him.’
    â€˜Fuck’s sake, Martha, we are not going down to the police station so you can look at a dead person. That’s sick, is what it is. Now sit down, wipe your face and get ready for a nice lunch with a nice man.’
    â€˜He’s not coming.’ The staircase is silent, the few lunchers starting to head back to work. ‘Nobody’s coming.’
    â€˜Could you just wait.’
    â€˜Sure.’ Martha grabs her purse. ‘It’s all I do.’ Leaves her there with the two pints and all that grease on her lips.
    Out into the snow, down Elm and over Lisgar and on down Larch to the police station, up to the counter where Martha stands until the thick-necked officer gives her the now-what look and says, ‘Yeah?’
    â€˜I’m here to see the body.’
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜The body that came in this morning from 17.’
    â€˜Ma’am.’ He takes off his glasses like this is causing him some extreme pain. ‘I don’t know where you heard that, but I can’t discuss the details of a criminal investigation.’
    â€˜That’s fine. I don’t want to discuss it, I want to see it.’
    â€˜Ma’am, are you a reporter?’
    â€˜No, I’m … I’m the wife.’
    â€˜Ma’am.’ That word having less and less kindness to it. ‘You can wait to see if the detective’ll talk to you, but it’ll be a while.’ He nods at the plastic chairs against the wall.
    â€˜I’m not waiting.’ She fights to keep her voice steady. Breathe.
    â€˜Ma’am, I’m going to ask you to step away from the counter.’
    â€˜I’m not.’ And she turns and walks back down the hallway, stopping halfway, next to the coffee maker, leaning against the wall thinking, I can’t go back. I can’t go on.
    â€˜Heard you talking to Officer Friendly back there.’ A smile. A short man pouring coffee in a styrofoam cup, tossing whitener into it. Blue uniform pants, white undershirt. Salt-and-pepper hair. ‘Coffee?’
    â€˜No thanks.’
    â€˜What – you don’t like the taste of dishwater?’ He chuckles at his own joke, tearing open four sugar packs at once, spilling granules all over the place.
    She pulls out her second-last cigarette and looks through her pockets. Stupid lighter. Scratch of a match and the short man lights it for her.
    â€˜Look, I don’t want to put my nose in, but I heard you say you were … his wife?’
    She really looks at him, blowing on his coffee even though she’s sure it’s been sitting there so long it’s lukewarm at best. He won’t make