Gretchen saw me first and gasped, dropping her lace handkerchief onto the floor.

And then Brandon looked up from his own eulogy and saw me, and I watched every drop of color drain out of my husband’s face until he looked like the corpse he had been describing.

“Am I interrupting your speech, Brandon?” I said.

My voice carried, cool and clear, all the way to the high ceiling, and it stopped the whole room in its tracks.

The whispers broke out across the pews like a grass fire catching. Is that her?

Is that really her?