So I found the daughter’s social media. Studied her voice from old videos. Learned the way she laughed (sharp, defensive) and the way she tucked her hair behind her ears when she was lying. I shifted. I went to the mother’s house.

The guilt doesn’t hit you all at once. It trickles in. You’ll be eating breakfast as yourself—blue fur, fox ears, the whole ridiculous package—and you’ll remember the way someone’s husband looked at you when you wore their wife’s face to a marriage counseling session. Or the way a child tugged your sleeve and called you “Mommy” because you’d taken a missing woman’s form just long enough to give a grieving family closure. (That one I didn’t even charge for. That one I did for free. And I still don’t know if it was kindness or cruelty.)

I wanted to be normal for him. So badly that it hurt.

I’ve had to move cities because of clients like that.

They never look at me the same after that. Some of them get angry. Some of them cry harder than they did at the funeral. And some of them get this terrible, hungry look, like they’re already planning how to scrape together enough money for another session.

But the job that haunts me? The one I’ll never shake?

The worst jobs are the ones where they want to stay. The clients who pay me to become their dead spouse, their estranged child, their younger self. They always want more time. “Just one more hour,” they’ll say, gripping my borrowed hand. “Just one more conversation. Please.”