All that’s really left of her is her hands.

Flushed pink and scarred red, they lay palms facing up on the concrete floor, which is smothered with burnt fabric and still-cooling ashes. Her nails are torn short—the better to handle gossamer fibers and spinning machines of textile factory work, I suppose—and tiny rivers of dried blood stain their sides. A rusted moonstone ring adorns her bone-thin thumb. Perhaps it’s her mother’s, or her grandmother’s, or even her aunt’s. My mind conjures images of wrinkled, matriarch hands pressing the ring into hers, relaying its many memories in hushed, reverent tones. Her skin is tan enough to be Italian; it might have been a parting gift, given before she boarded a rickety boat to New York hoping it would bring her toward a better life.

“Cherish this,” her grandmother might have whispered in her ear as she slipped it into her finger, “and when you do, remember me.”

I shudder. In the end, that boat only brought her towards death.

Embedded in the creases of her palm is dust, dirt, soot. She has no wedding band. I’m almost glad—no husband or children to mourn her—until I realize that means she never got the chance to have a family at all. I wonder if she was in love. I wonder if it matters.

Her fingers are delicately curled around a string of cracked rosary beads, as if she is still deep in prayer. She must have kept it hidden in the folds of her skirt; I imagine her taking it out as the fire set in. It’s likely she knew the door was locked, that there was no use fighting against it. Not that I think she was a fighter. I think she was gentle. I can feel it. In fact, I can almost see her closing her eyes, feeling the weight of the beads in her hand as she awaited the raging blaze, a peaceful expression on her face up until the very end.

I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife anymore, after my years as a fireman. With the horrors I’ve witnessed, simple nothingness almost sounds like a relief.

All the same, I hope she made it there. And I hope, earnestly, that she is not forgotten.