4 Years After My Death, My Husband Reconstructed My Skull

Four years after my death, my skull was unearthed from the foundation of an abandoned construction site. My husband, Cole, was summoned to reconstruct it. He was the state bureau's top facial reconstruction expert. He stared at the mud-caked bone. His tone was detached and icy. "Victim, female. Suffered severe blunt force trauma prior to death. Massive facial depression, suspected torture." Cursing the corpse for bringing bad luck, he used sculpting clay to build up muscle tissue layer by layer, slowly restoring the features. Until he shaped the nose. It was a silhouette he knew better than his own. On the left bridge of the nose was a minuscule bony ridge—a callus left behind after he accidentally bumped into it and fractured it on our wedding night. Cole's hand trembled. He had hated me for half his life. He thought I had stolen five million dollars meant for his life-saving surgery and eloped with a lover. Until now. Now, he held my skull. I drifted in the air, watching this man—always so composed, so unyielding—frantically try to piece together the skull with only half its face restored. Cole, stop sculpting. No matter how perfectly you rebuild it, I'm never coming back. I hovered above Cole's studio. This was his inner sanctum. Shelves lined the four walls, filled with plaster casts and facial reconstructions of the dead. Cole wore a black canvas apron and protective goggles, holding a delicate sculpting knife. After four years, he looked steadier. And much gloomier. The brooding darkness between his brows was like indelible ink. "Dr. Vance, this case is urgent." The detective who brought the case in was a young man named Parker. He placed a sealed evidence case onto the worktable, speaking with utmost care. "These remains were found buried in the foundation of the unfinished development in the south district. Poured concrete. The body is completely skeletonized, no personal effects or ID. Only the skull remained relatively intact." Cole didn't look up, quietly wiping down his scalpel. "You know my rate?" "Yeah. Flat fee. Fifty thousand." Cole let out a cold sneer. "Price went up. Eighty thousand." Parker blinked. "Dr. Vance, this is from the department's budget." "Then take it back." Cole tossed the tool onto the steel table with a sharp clatter, his voice frigid. "Wasting three days of my time on some nameless Jane Doe? Eighty thousand is already doing Captain Miller a favor." I watched him. I looked at this man who, years ago, lived on instant ramen for an entire month just to save up enough money to buy me a hearing aid. Now, he was haggling over thousands of dollars with a detective. He had changed. He had become mercenary. Merciless. Ever since I supposedly "ran off with his money" four years ago, he had become this hollow shell. Parker gritted his teeth. "Fine. Eighty thousand it is. Captain Miller said identifying the victim is our top priority. This is tied to that old demolition case." Cole slipped on a pair of black nitrile gloves and popped the latches on the sealed case. A foul, damp reek of rot and soil drifted into the room. Inside lay a grayish, battered skull. Bits of dry concrete still clung to its surface. That was me. Mia.Four years ago, I died inside a concrete mixer on a torrential, rainy night. Cole furrowed his brows in disgust, picking up the skull with forceps and placing it onto a rotating turntable. "Fractured mandible, collapsed zygomatic arch, older healed fractures on the supraorbital ridge." As he examined it, he delivered his usual venomous commentary: "Took a severe beating before she died. With injuries like this, it's most likely a crime of passion or revenge. Probably wasn't much to look at, either. The bone structure is miserable." A bitter smile touched my invisible lips. Cole, that wasn't what you used to say. You used to cup my cheeks in your hands, telling me my facial bones were a masterpiece, that I was your muse, the most exquisite work of art you'd ever known. Now, I'm just an ugly, miserable Jane Doe to you. "All right, get out," Cole said dismissively. "Come back in three days for the results." Parker nodded and slipped out the door. Only Cole and I remained in the studio, surrounded by shelves of vacant plaster skulls. Cole lit a cigarette. He didn't smoke it, just let it burn down between his knuckles. He stared at my skull, his gaze turning distant. Suddenly, he pulled open a desk drawer and took out a photograph. In the photo, I was smiling brightly. He ground the glowing cherry of the cigarette straight into my face on the glossy paper, burning a black, smoking hole right through it. "Mia." He ground out my name through clenched teeth. "That five million dollars you stole... have you burned through it yet?" "While you were living your glamorous life overseas, did you have any idea I almost died on that operating table?" A phantom agony ripped through my chest. Even though I no longer had a heart to beat. Four years ago, he was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. He needed five million dollars for an experimental surgery. To raise the money, I went to beg the wealthy real estate mogul who had been relentlessly pursuing me. I never imagined it was an ambush. I never got the money. Instead, they beat me to death and dumped me into the foundation pour. And to crush any hope Cole had left, that developer fabricated wire transfers and fake international flight records under my name. Cole, I never took your money. I gave you everything. Even my life.Cole got to work. He was a prodigy in his field. Hand him a skull, and based solely on bone density, muscle markings, and tissue depth charts, he could recreate a deceased person's living face with uncanny accuracy. Margin of error under five percent. First, he cleaned the bone. His stiff brush swept through my eye sockets, nasal cavity, and auditory canals. His motions were rough, laced with a bitter need to vent. "Why the hell is this ear canal so narrow?" Cole muttered under his breath. He slipped a metal probe into my left ear canal, only for it to snag. "Hyperostosis?" He leaned closer under the lamp. My spirit grew taut. I was born with profound hearing loss. I'd had a cochlear implant placed in my left ear; even though it was later removed, it left tiny drill holes and surgical abrasions along the temporal bone. Cole's gloved thumb brushed over that exact spot. His gaze flickered. "These marks..." A flash of memory crossed his mind, but he quickly shook his head, a sarcastic sneer twisting his lips. "Another deaf girl?" "Funny how they crawl out of the woodwork." He didn't dwell on it. He began setting depth pegs. He glued small plastic markers at various anatomical landmarks across the skull to indicate soft tissue thickness. Then, he began applying the oil-based clay. The clay shifted and stretched in his hands, blanketing the pale bone. First the temporalis, then the masseter, then the orbicularis oris. As the muscle groups stacked layer by layer, the faint outline of a human face began to emerge. I hovered beside him, watching his hands shape and smooth the contours. My thoughts were a tangled mess. Part of me prayed he would recognize me, while another part terrified me with the prospect. If he discovered this battered corpse was me, what would he do? Would he drown in regret? Or would he celebrate that I finally got what I deserved? "Pointed chin," Cole muttered to himself as he carved away excess clay. "Looks like that cold-blooded bitch." His hand paused. His expression darkened. "They all have that same ungrateful, cruel face." With a sharp flick of his blade, he sliced off a chunk of clay from my jawline. "Better if it looks nothing like her." "Looking at her face makes me sick." I closed my eyes, unable to bear his loathing. Cole, do you know why my chin was so sharp? Because during those months I spent nursing you through your illness, I dropped twenty pounds from sheer exhaustion. I used to have soft, chubby cheeks. You loved squishing them, calling me your little marshmallow. And now, you find me disgusting. Hours trickled away. By the second night, most of the face was fully sculpted. Only the nose and the eyes remained. The nose is the anchor of the face; it dictates a person's entire presence. Cole took a roll of clay, rolled it into a strip, and pressed it against the nasal bone. His fingers were deft, pressing and shaping the bridge with practiced precision. Suddenly. His fingertips froze right over the left side of the bridge. There was a minuscule bump in the bone. Like a tiny, healed nodule. An ordinary person would never notice it, but an expert like Cole, who read skeletal anatomies like open books, felt it instantly. Cole's entire body went rigid. That nodule. It was etched into his very soul.Five years ago, on our wedding night. We were tipsy, laughing, tumbling onto the bed. I clumsily smashed my face into the corner of the nightstand, fracturing the bridge of my nose. I bawled my eyes out from the pain. It tore him apart. He held me and rocked me in his arms the entire night. When the fracture healed, it hadn't set perfectly, leaving behind a tiny, hardened callus. Every time he kissed me after that, he would tenderly press his lips to that exact spot, whispering that it was his "permanent brand" on me. Right now. His fingers rested squarely on that brand. The exact same texture. The exact same position. The color drained from Cole's face in an instant. His breathing turned ragged. "No... impossible..." He yanked his hand back as if scorched by an open flame. The sculpting knife slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly against the floor. "A coincidence. It's just a coincidence." "Millions of people break their noses..." "Mia is in the States. She's living in some luxury mansion in San Francisco. There is no way in hell she's buried in concrete." He muttered like a madman, his hands trembling violently as he bent to retrieve the blade. Yet his hands shook so hard he couldn't keep a grip on it. He refused to believe it. Or rather, he didn't dare to. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, trying to force his racing pulse to steady. "Keep sculpting. Once the rest of the face is on, it won't look like her." He picked up the clay again, attempting to reshape the nose into a stranger's. Yet his fingers seemed possessed by an instinct of their own. Following the natural contours of the bone, tracing the exact curvature of that tiny callus. Millimeter by millimeter, he reconstructed the raw, unvarnished truth. That slightly upturned tip. The faint bump along the bridge. That fragile, delicate curve born from an old injury. The second the nose was completed, Cole broke completely. It was Mia's nose. A nose he would recognize even if she were reduced to ash. Even with ninety-nine percent of his doubts shattered, Cole fought with his dying breath to deny it. "The eyes. As long as the eyes don't match, it isn't her." He pulled two acrylic prosthetic eyes from a drawer. Warm hazel. The exact shade of my irises. With hands that shook uncontrollably, he pressed the eyes into the hollow sockets. Then, he began building the eyelids. I had delicate hooded lids. The outer corners tilted downward slightly, giving me an innocent, gentle look. Cole used to tease me, saying God gave me those eyes just so I could fool him into doing whatever I wanted. The clay smoothed down around the orbits. Upper lids. Lower lids. The delicate inner canthus. With the final stroke of his blade, a familiar, pale, lifeless face stared back from the turntable. Identical to the photograph in his drawer.