There was a black SUV parked outside. Medical Examiner, it said on the side. I hadn't read those words in almost 3 years.

A police car was parked behind it. Someone had run tape between two yellow bollards across the mouth of an alley — white background, blue text. I could see the body bag at the far end. I wondered if it had been there all night.

I paced the block, waiting for the other coffee shop to open. The activity picked up. A black van pulled in, same tint and color as the SUV, and the SUV pulled away. Then they brought the body out of the alley in that bag, and the only thing in my head was how stiff my mother's body looked in the coffin, not at peace, but completely transformed and unlike herself.

They drove the body off. Both vehicles gone. The tape stayed up. I could see the blood on the pavement where they landed. A doorman from one of the buildings told me someone had jumped that morning.