I lift her up. I do not want anyone else's hands on her again. I must perform the final acts of tenderness on my baby.
She is so heavy, so icy cold and so very heavy.
I do not want to touch her, it makes it too real. Nothing will ever be this real again.
But I must. I would not have anyone else do this.
I carry her over to the bathing table. Place her down. Awkwardly arrange a sheet under her. A white sheet. Wondering why she is not helping me. Why is she so heavy?
Fill a bowl with warm water scented with roses and orange. Wring out a cloth. Begin to wash her, to bathe her for the final time, to remove all traces of others' touches. The last caresses on her little body will be mine.
She doesn't smell right. My baby never smelt like this. Even when she had been playing in the fields. I sprinkle her body with the rose water in the blue bottle. It is no good. The smell will remain in my nostrils for months. Even now I sometimes detect it, the distinctive acrid odour of death.
Starting at her feet I work my way up her body. Lifting her heavy limbs, rolling her slightly on her side. I gasp when I see her back, the raw skin. Chest, arms, hands. Gently washing her plump little pussy, not yet seven and already some tiny golden down hinting at the woman she was to become. The hardest of all to wash is her face. Perfect, unmarked save for the tiniest of scratches on her pale upper lip, those lips, always so pink, now set in a resolute expression, she looks so determined.
I cannot believe I am doing this.