The dead man's expression changed while Owen was looking for the light switch. He had left the face slack and composed. When he turned back, the mouth was set in a familiar line of impatience, exactly like his own when someone asked for a viewing after he had prepared the room to close.
He stood beside the door and waited for the resemblance to become less exact.
It did not.
The man's name was Petr. His sister, June, had traveled for four hours to see him. She was waiting in reception with a plastic bag containing a clean shirt. Owen had explained that the body was already dressed, and she had said the shirt was simply a thing she had brought. He had understood too late that she had needed something to carry.
Before admitting her, he pulled the cloth over Petr's face and removed it again.
The impatience was gone. The corpse looked frightened now, brows raised slightly, lips parted. Owen touched his own mouth. He had made that expression while uncovering it.
He went to reception and asked June whether she wanted another minute.
"I've had four hours," she said.
She was a small woman in a coat too warm for the season. She had worn it anyway because it had enough pockets to hold her phone, ticket, tissues and the little things people accumulate when they cannot bear to sit still. Owen noticed her taking each item out and putting it back before standing.
Inside the viewing room, she stopped at the foot of the table.
"Please leave the face uncovered."
He had not meant to move the cloth. His hand had gone toward it without permission from the rest of him.
June approached. Petr's face softened into an expression of anxious welcome. She made a sound and leaned closer. The same expression had appeared on her own face a moment earlier.
Owen moved to the side so that the body could not directly face him. Petr's eyes were closed. Their position did not seem to matter. His cheeks moved, the corners of his mouth tightening as June's mouth tightened. He was learning from the face nearest him.
"Is that normal?" she asked.
"I haven't seen it before."
He was glad the answer had come out honestly. The room was full of phrases people used to protect one another from being frightened, and none would have helped her decide what to do next.
June put a hand on the edge of the table. She said her brother had looked at her like that during their last argument. She had accused him of making their mother's death difficult on purpose. He had been unable to help with practical arrangements because he could not enter the house where she had died. June had called this selfishness.
The corpse's lower lip trembled.
June began to apologize. As she spoke, Petr's hand lifted slightly from the cloth. The fingers moved toward her wrist. Owen saw her draw closer, answering a gesture whose meaning neither of them could know.
He brought the folding screen between her face and the body.
June stepped back sharply.
"What are you doing?"
He told her what he had observed, including his own expression of impatience. He did not call the movements harmless. He did not call them her brother. She listened while looking at the screen, where a rectangle of light showed through the thin material.
"Can he still hear me?"
"I don't know. You can keep speaking if you want."
She spoke from behind the screen. She said she had been frightened too. She said she wished she had asked him to sit in the car outside their mother's house instead of demanding that he come in. Owen stood where he could watch Petr without offering a full view of his face.
The expressions continued, but they were no longer June's.
The mouth opened asymmetrically. One cheek drew upward while the other remained slack. The brow tightened into a concentration Owen could not identify. It looked like a person trying unfamiliar muscles after a long period without a body. Then the face became afraid in a way that belonged to neither of the living people in the room.
June finished speaking. She asked whether she should touch him.
Owen told her she did not have to. It was the only answer he could give without claiming knowledge he did not possess.
She left the shirt on a chair and went out. At the doorway she looked back, but the screen prevented another exchange of expressions. She thanked Owen for staying with her, then asked him to stay a little longer with Petr.
He waited until her footsteps had faded before moving the screen. The corpse's eyelids were open now. Owen had not seen them lift. The eyes followed his hand as he reached toward them, and the face seemed briefly relieved.
He closed the lids carefully. Beneath his fingers, something in the face tried to meet his touch. Owen kept his hand there until the movement stopped, unable to decide whether he had kept a frightened woman safe or helped her leave her brother alone for a second time.
