It was also the first time I had ever been thankful for mygifts,as my mother called them.
My father had sat on the counter of the embalming room while I had worked on his body. We listened to all his favorite classical playlists, and he left me with a few final pieces of advice.
‘Take care of your mother.’He made me promise, and I nodded, barely holding back tears.
She couldn’t see him, but he spent the entire next day with her at his funeral before he faded away to wherever souls went after they died.
Watching my mother go through the grieving process after my father’s death solidified what he had taught me.
Funerals were for the living.
I truly didn’t know if my mother would have been able to move on from the death of my father if she hadn’t been able to properly say goodbye that day. The whole experience wastragic but somehow also incredibly profound. Since then, I have thrown myself into my work, proudly taking over the family business and following in my father’s footsteps.
However, now, at age twenty-seven, with several years of experience under my belt, I wasn’t sure I entirely agreed that funerals werejustfor the living anymore.
They had to be for the dead alittle bit… considering the soul of whoever I had on my table usually hovered nearby, telling meexactlyhow they wanted their hair to look or whether or not I had applied too much rouge.
Like right now, Ms. Thompson was caterwauling in my ear about how her sister should have chosen thebluedress and that she should know better than to put her inpink.She was a winter, not a summer. Warm tones lookedhorrible on her.
“I think everyone is technically a winter after they die, Ms. Thompson,” I murmured as I inserted injector needles into the upper jaw of her body. “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure your coloring suits the dress your sister chose for you before your final look. I learned from the best,” I assured her ghost, who cocked her head to the side skeptically. She snorted.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she snipped as I wired the mouth to her body shut. I didn’t say it out loud, but I kind of wished I could wire her spirit’s mouth shut. She was one of the more annoying ones I had needed to deal with this week. I had just started the embalming process, and I was already sick of her.
There was a knock at the door, and Theo walked in without waiting for me to answer, as was her custom.
I let out an annoyed puff of air, glancing up at her with a frown.
“Can I help you? I’m in the middle of an embalming. You know better.” My father had taught me that the embalming room wassacred.Only authorized personnel were allowed in.Though Theo lived here with my mother and me, she didn’tworkhere… so authorized, she wasnot.
However, that had never stopped her before. She was glistening in sweat and wearing her usual men’s black, dri-fit shorts and T-shirt combo that she wore for training.
Her dark brown hair was tied in a knot at the nape of her neck. Because of her naturally tall but stocky stature and insanely rigorous training regimen, Theo was more built than most men I had met. Lucky fucker took after our father. I, on the other hand, took after our mother.
I had the misfortune of inheriting Iris’ red hair and freckles, so while I shared the striking bone structure that my sister had, I was decidedly the less…pursuedof the two of us.
In college, after we escaped the stigma that had followed us through high school, my sister’s dorm had been a revolving door of women. I, on the other hand, seemed to attract a lot of femalefriends.Which, honestly, was fine with me. Sex with the few girls thathadbeen interested in fucking me had always felt like more of a chore than anything.
I wasn’t sure if it was because I spent my days touching dead bodies, but I rarely felt the desire to touch other people in any intimate way. That being said, I had never really had a long-term girlfriend until recently.
I finally found a girl who seemed as uninterested in sex as I was. Her name was Joanna, and she was a Sunday school teacher at St. Gabriel’s Church. She was nice enough, and my relationship with her made me feel slightly more normal. At least when people asked if I was single, I could say ‘no’ now. One less awkward social situation to navigate.
“That weird kid who’s obsessed with you is here again,” Theo said, squirting her water bottle into her mouth.
That got my attention. Caleb was one of the neighbor’s kids, and I was pretty sure he had a shitty home life. He had walkedinto the funeral home one day asking a ton of questions about death, and I had been overcome with the strangest feeling that the kid was trying to escape something and needed some form of sanctuary.
I had given him a tour of Fairview, taking him to the casket showroom and the visitation room. I explained the difference between an urn and a casket. He had a ton of questions about cremation.
Do we do it with their clothes on?
What about their jewelry?
What happens to their bones? Do they burn, too?
When I asked him if his parents knew where he was, he had gone very quiet, and the blood had drained from his face.
That was when I knew that something was very wrong and this little boy was suffering. I had called CPS, but nothing had come of it. So now, whenever he showed up, I just did my best to make him feel welcome and safe.
“I’m going to be at least another hour and a half,” I told Theo, gesturing to the naked corpse of Ms. Thompson I had just started embalming.Honestly, maybe two hours if she keeps yammering the whole time.
