Page 5 of Grave Love
I roll my eyes. It’s funny, in a way. It’s not like this was my first embalming. I’ve been working here for years, and I can’t even getthisjob right.
Ugliness creeps inside of me, digging through my skin, begging to come out like insects crawling up to the surface. I’m a waste of air.
“Anyway,” Denise says, then holds up a folded piece of paper. “One of tomorrow’s services asked for a special arrangement. Can you take this to Blaze? I have to go back to the showroom. I’ve got a couple waiting for me.”
My jaw hangs open. That name is familiar. I can’t quite grasp it. “Blaze?”
She angles her head to the side. “The groundskeeper?”
“Groundskeeper?”
She sighs slightly, then forces a smile. “The new gravedigger? He digs the graves and mows the lawn? He’s out in the cemetery right now.”
My body heat rises. I try to focus on the information. A man is working here, and I don’t even know what he looks like.
“How long?” I ask.
“How long, what?”
“How long has he been working here?”
“A few weeks now.”
My neck pinches. “You—”
I don’t finish. What would I say?You said you didn’t like working with men in this industry. You said a lot of things, and one by one, they turn out to be lies.
“What?” Denise asks.
My eyes fall to the floor. I stare at the scuff marks on my black flats.
“I didn’t know you hired a man,” I say quietly.
“Don’t think about him,” she says. “Just give him the order, and you won’t have to say anything to him. Focus on you, okay? It’s not a big deal. He won’t bite.”
Bite.Hah. As ifthat’swhy I don’t want to talk to him.
Denise wants me to do this. I don’t have a choice. It’s always the same with her:One day at a time. Take life as it is. Control what you can control.The same sayings we’ve all heard a thousand times before.
“Have you considered taking that job at your grandmother’s school?” she asks, breaking the silence. “I’d hate for you to leave, but maybe that’s what’s best for you right now. A change, you know?”
I glare at her. Did my grandmother tell her about that?
I don’t want to know.
I snatch the order from her hands, then grab a bag of chips from the fridge. The same bag that’s been in there for months now.
“I’m going on lunch,” I say.
I exit out the back, with the chips and my coffee. I set my lunch down, then quickly walk across the lawn to where the excavator is parked. There are no signs of the groundskeeper. On the front seat, I lift a bottle of water, placing the order underneath it.
I return to the back patio. A high garden smothered in white flowers separates the mortuary building from the cemetery. The flowers act as a subtle barrier so that death is more palatable for the living, for people who aren’t around it constantly like we are. No onewantsto notice the other dead lying around their loved ones. No one wants to remember that we all end up the same. And why would they?
I lean on the wall, a spot right across from the lilies and daffodils. Past the flowers and a few gravestones away, a preacher raises his arms in the air. His audience bobs their heads solemnly. I don’t know which is more irritating—a celebration of a deceased’s life or the mourning of their death—but I know no one really wants to confront death. Not a husband of a late wife. Not a mother of a child. Not a daughter of a mother.
Unless you’re like me.
The mourners take turns shoveling clumps of dirt into that large, rectangular cavern. I imagine taking that person’s place, locked inside of that wooden prison, listening to the soft thud of dirt like rain sprinkling on a tin roof. Death seems peaceful like that. The end of it all. An endless sleep that you’ll never wake up from. An eternity where you don’t have to confront your failure every day.
