Page 18 of Cherry Picking

We round the corner to find Murphy parked at the dining table in a manual wheelchair, both hands wrapped around a faded Marlins mug. As I step into his line of sight, he scans me from my boots to my hair, one brow already climbing toward his hairline.

He’s—well, the genetics are undeniable. I didn’t get a proper look at him during the service, but up close, the resemblance is unfair.

He’s somewhere in his late fifties, built with a sturdy frame that’s gone a bit soft and gray, sporting several days of scruff and the same heavy, expressive brows as his son. There’s a slight droop to the left side of his face—the stroke’s lasting signature—which leaves him looking perpetually skeptical of everything he sees.

I decide I like the look. It gives him an edge.

“So. You’re the girl Danny’s been raving about,” he says.

“That would be me,” I reply.

Murphy snorts. “I hope you didn’t come here expecting anything. I don’t need a sitter.”

“Good, because I’m not great with kids.”

“You know what happened to the last person who tried to ‘help’ me.” He delivers the line with a flat, clinical coldness that has Briggs going still in the doorway. I don’t even flinch.

People assume working in the death industry makes you somber. In reality, it just makes you the only person in the room who can handle a morbid punchline without blinking.

“I know more than the rumors,” I tell him. “I’m the one who dug the hole for his burial.”

“You did?” he asks, his gaze sharpening.

“Saturday morning, with my partner Tomás.” I pull out the chair opposite him and sit, because the standing-over-him routine is exhausting for everyone. “It’s a nice plot, actually. Good drainage. You’d be surprised how many of them flood in the winter.”

“Christ,” Briggs mutters to the ceiling.

“Good drainage,” Murphy repeats, like he’s testing the weight of the phrase for a future argument. “You hear that, Briggs? At least the man’s dry.”

Briggs offers a tight, pained smile. “I heard.”

“Sit down, son, you’re hovering. You look exactly like your mother when you do that.” Murphy gestures vaguely at the third chair, and Briggs finally sinks into it.

“Their mother—she’s gone?” I ask, keeping my voice level.

“Childbirth complications,” Murphy replies. “Something went wrong after Zig was born. She only got to hold the boy for about a day before she passed.”

“Postpartum hemorrhage?” I offer. “Or maybe an embolism. The details usually get lost in the paperwork.”

He looks at me with a flicker of genuine recognition. “You certainly know the trade.”

“It’s the family business.” I give him a small, empathetic smile. “My mother died, too, if we’re comparing notes. I was eight months old. Aneurysm, they think. I have no memory of her at all.”

“Is that right?” Murphy asks.

“Not a single second of her. We keep her photo on the mantle like a ghost.” I shrug. “It’s a strange club to be in. Motherless before you can form a thought. The dues are cheap, but the meetings are weird.”

Murphy huffs a laugh, and for a second, he looks happy. Then his eyes glaze over with moisture.

His son is barely five days dead, and now he’s discussing his late wife with a stranger while the grief threatens to spill over the rim. Briggs notices the shift and goes rigid, half rising from his chair, every instinct in him screaming to fix it, to shield his father, to change the subject—

I place a palm flat on the table. “There’s been a lot of rain under this roof lately. You’re allowed to leak.”

Murphy lets out a wet, cracked laugh that sounds like it was dragged up from his chest, swiping the heel of his hand under his eye. “Where the hell did Danny find you?”

“Two doors down from the medical supply warehouse.”

“Christ,” Briggs says again. But the tension has finally left his shoulders, and when I look at him, his expression is soft, like I’ve just performed some small miracle.