Page 21 of Dead Love
CHAPTER7
Vincent
I stepped into the lobby.The forlorn shapes of the artificial ficus trees hovered between the groups of people. It was better that way; I simply dusted the trees and none of the families had to worry about them dying too. A woman with black hair cut to a chin-bob emerged from the hallway offices. My bookkeeper, Lee.
“Boss,” she said. While men had primarily dominated the funeral business in the past, more and more women had entered the field. Lee and Catie were evidence of that. Lee scratched her chin. “The Nerissa family paid their last invoice this morning,” she said, anticipating my question.
“Good,” I said. It was better not to put additional stress on the families on days like today, but the death industry was still a business, and it wasmybusiness, one I had inherited from my uncle. Even if the all-in-one cemetery, crematory, embalming station, and funeral home, was a dying model, between the three of us—Catie, Lee, and I—we ran a smooth business. Luckily, once I had hired Lee and Catie, I was able to avoid dealing with the families almost entirely. I was better at crematory work, embalming, digging graves—anything to keep my hands busy and my brain occupied. Lee headed back to her office and I rubbed my hand over the sleeves of my jacket, the scar thick under the fabric.
It had been like this since I was seven years old. It started with an accidental cut on my arm. When my mother saw my arm bleeding, dripping all over the floor, she had screamed in a shrill voice, then pulled me to her body, clutching me tighter than she ever had, caving into herself, like I was the only one who could hold her up. Dizziness overcame me, like my body was floating under all of her weight, more powerful than I had ever been. I didn’t understand how sick she was at the time, but I figured out new ways to inspire that reaction in both of my parents, sometimes even my older brother. To find the passion that I knew lived inside of them, somewhere.
So I lit my desk on fire. Pulled apart our treehouse. Made a bonfire from the planks. Nearly burnt down our house. Hit my head on a boulder until my forehead bled. Cut my neck with a kitchen knife. All the while my mother grew weaker, until finally, she could barely hold me.
That was when I finally understood that she was dying. But I had never expected my father to die so soon after.
You’ll understand one day,he had said.
But that understanding never came. Not even when I saw the exit wound on the side of his head. My brother rushed to our uncle’s house, but I stared at the two of them. My mother’s body was in later stages of decay, the ripe stench of rotting meat fogging the air, metallic with my father’s blood. My father hadn’t done anything with her body; calling the funeral home seemed like an impossible task. Now, she was tinted bluish-purple. Blood from my father’s gunshot wound caked across my mother’s face, so dark it was brown.
Back then, I knew nothing about death.
I touched their faces: my mother’s cheeks squished under my fingers, but my father was still firm, still warm. The blood had cooled, and when I touched the hole in his head, a sharp fragment pained my finger. A piece of the bullet. I flinched back; I couldn’t tell if it was his blood or mine, but my finger hurt. It fascinated me. It was incredible to witness, to see the human body, so utterly destroyed. A machine without power. The shell of light. My mother had died slowly, but my father was gone in an instant. The difference between a treehouse destroyed plank by plank, versus lighting a match underneath the structure until it was engulfed in flames. They were both gone.
When the funeral finally came, I had been enraptured by how normal they both looked. Though there were obvious signs of decay, the embalmer had made my mother seem as if her body had never gone through the trauma of illness. Like she was her old self in some ways. Like she could give me a hug and it would be all right. And the side of my father’s head had been smoothed with wax, then colored to match his hair; he looked good too. Like he had died peacefully, and not full of guilt and failure.
My uncle smiled down at me.Sometimes, death is less painful than we think,he had said.Your mother needed the final rest.
How do you explain my father?I asked.
He blamed himself,he said.Your mother wanted to go, and your father begged her to stay. And when he realized how selfish it was, he felt it was the only way to make things right.
That didn’t make sense to me.So why did he go?I asked again.Why did they leave us here?My uncle was taking care of us, but we didn’t know him well, and my brother refused to talk about their deaths. I was alone.
My uncle was silent for a while.I’m afraid there is no explanation,he said,only acceptance.
The need for destruction intensified, with drugs, fire, pain, and violence, until finally, after getting expelled from high school, my brother asked my uncle if he could train me in the field earlier than planned. Now, I was here.
Catie came to my side, then motioned to the viewing room. “I came to check on you. Figured you might need some help.”
What she meant was that I rarely attended the services themselves; it was odd behavior to be here for a decedent I didn’t know.
“Everything is in order,” I said. My eyes landed on Kora, standing in the doorway to the viewing room. Her mother put an arm around her back, her grip firm, as if she was afraid of letting her daughter go, and Andrew bowed his head, his hands in his pockets. I understood her mother, but what did Andrew want with Kora?
“Do you know her?” Catie asked, tilting her head toward Kora.
“The florist’s daughter,” I said.
“Shea Nova?” she asked. I nodded. “She’s off-limits, then.”
“Nothing is off-limits.”
She raised a brow at me, but I didn’t move, my gaze still cast on Kora. A black dress showed off her bare shoulders, flaring out to the sides, more of a dress for a nightclub than a funeral. And still, a smile danced across Kora’s face, soft and pleasant, as if Andrew was being amusing.
My hand twitched. I wanted to rip off his head and feed it to my dogs.
“I’d stay away if I were you,” Catie warned. “I hear Shea is like a barricade when it comes to her daughter.”
“There’s always a way around the fence.”
