I was expecting quirky. I was expecting funeral home chic, but that’s not at all what I got.
What I got was understated elegance. What I got was summery ease, splashes of eye-catching colors against lovely neutrals. Here a bit of red, there a bit of orange, and over there blue, and green.
The furniture—couch, loveseat, and recliners—looked brand new, well built, and comfortable. One entire wall was covered with a huge flat-screen monitor. The west-facing wall was all windows.
Soft music with wind chimes and the flow of water played from hidden speakers.
But the thing that really caught my attention were the flowers.
Hanging in pots, tucked into corners of the windows, stacked across the mantle, hooked into frames against the walls, trailing up the side of that huge monitor, were little blooms and buds. Beautiful. Fragile. Familiar and exotic, there were more than I could name.
And all of them so green, green, green. The scents should have been overwhelming, clashing. But somehow there was only a sweetness in the air that was almost too faint to catch. The kind of fragrance that made me want to stop, close my eyes and take a sniff just to see if I could breathe a little more of it.
This felt personal. Private. All these tiny pots, carefully planted, lit, watered.
This music, wind, water, and softness.
This room, furniture and comfort, inviting ease.
I was standing in the middle of Death’s garden.
The urge to take pictures for my sisters faded. This was his place to vacation, to be something he was not when he carried his power. And what else would Death want but the one thing his power never allowed: to nurture life.
“Here,” he said, taking over the driving and getting us around the oversized couch.
I helped him sit, then stepped back so he could recline if he wanted to. Instead he just stretched out his long, long legs—spiders jiggling—for miles, and leaned his head back against the cushion. He sniffed loudly, eyes closed, and after a quick scan, I went back out into the hall.
I ripped the cardboard off the top of the box and popped two tissues out for him.
“Thank you.” He took the tissues then held them up with a questioning look.
“They’re…uh…for you to blow your nose.”
“Whatever do you…? Oh, I see.” He folded them neatly, blew, folded, blew. “That’s… Yes. Quite.”
I sat on the coffee table, trying to stay out of his sneezing distance, hands on my knees. “I’m sorry you have a cold.”
He wiped under his nose, looked down at the tissue, then back up at me. “Do I?” He shivered and cleared his throat. “Ah. How unpleasant. I am feeling extremely unpleasant.”
“Yeah, that’s how it goes.” I removed everything else and set the bag beside him. “Drop the used tissues in there. Pull new ones when you need them. Have you eaten anything?”
“Ever?”
I held back a laugh. “Recently. Today.”
He made an offended face. “Why would I? I am feeling extremely unpleasant. Have you not noticed, Reed Daughter? Extremely unpleasant.”
“Don’t be a baby about it.”
His mouth fell open with a littlepopfrom his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You are not very nurturing. Is that not the role of a…”
“Woman?” I asked with my eyebrows quirked and a dangerous tone.
“…employer.” He blinked those bloodshot eyes, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to look contrite or pulling my leg.
“All you get out of an employer is a request for a note from your doctor and a dock in your pay.”
“You don’t pay me, as I recall.”
