by Eli Constant
Nodding, I lean forward and get one of my rollerball pens out of the little holder that’s shaped like a tree trunk; it’s even made of wood. “Okay, that sounds up my alley. When did he die?”
Allen looks away from me, gazing at something nondescript over my shoulder. “The thing is, I don’t know if he has, but I can’t keep waiting. I need closure. He’s been gone for so long.”
“So your son is missing.”
“For nearly a year and a half now.” Mr. Barrington reaches down to the floor and gets a picture from out of his tattered, leather briefcase. I can tell it was expensive once, by how the gold trappings still shine with care and the leather is still supple despite the wear. It’s the kind of bag you buy when you intend to use it for a good, long time, and don’t want to worry over it breaking or tearing. He was a man of means, or at least he used to be. Now though, by the out-of-date tailored, olive green suit and the polished shoes with the nearly worn-through soles, I think he’s well past his lucky days.
“You’re looking at my clothing and wondering how much I could possibly offer to pay, aren’t you?”
I start, focusing back on his face rather than his material things. Feeling my cheeks go hot with embarrassment, I stutter. “No, I promise that wasn’t it. I just… you seem to be a man who’s seen better days. That’s not professional to say or polite, but it’s better than what you were thinking.”
“You’re right.” He slumps a little, losing some of the meager confidence he’d gained by my not having heard his tale of woe. “When Timothy went missing, I gave up everything trying to find him. I lost my job because I’d rather spend my days canvassing the neighborhood. I lost my house to the bank for not paying the mortgage. I was a banker once. High up on the food chain, not a single worry in my pockets.”
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a parent and lose a child.” No matter how many times I’ve consoled a grieving parent, I will never understand the depths of their sadness. It’s impossible as an outsider, even though I can feel how their very blood sings with the loss.
“It’s the kind of pain you don’t recover from, Ms. Cage.” He leans forward, the picture upside down and slipped between two fingers. He holds it firmly, but with the tenderness of care that only a parent has.
I take the picture from him and I turn it around so that I can see the boy. I try to keep my eyes from widening when his face comes into view, but I am not totally successful. Raising my head, I look at Allen. His lips are parted, more words ready to spill out.
“He was a good boy. Others didn’t see it, but I did.” He reaches down again and pulls another photo from his briefcase; he sits there, studying it. “Timothy walked to the beat of his own drum. He wasn’t born a male you see and he always felt there was something wrong with him. There wasn’t though, Ms. Cage. He was handsome and smart and kind. He just didn’t identify with the anatomy he was given.”
The picture I am holding shows a beautiful girl with short cropped hair, so close it is nearly a buzz cut. Her eyes are framed by thick black glasses and her left ear sports a single heart earring. She’s wearing a man’s button up dress shirt under a dark grey pinstripe suit vest. The outfit is polished off with a red bowtie. She’s smiling for the camera, obviously proud and comfortable in her skin.
There’s a little name tag on her lapel that reads “Timothy” with the words “Quickie Food Mart.”
Allen hands over the second picture then. This one shows the girl with long, raven-black hair and she’s wearing a plaid dress. In this photo, she is not smiling.
“His mother and I divorced because she wouldn’t recognize who he was. She insisted on calling him Amanda and dressing him like a girl. It broke his spirt and I wouldn’t have that. She turned cruel.” Allen has to get his handkerchief back out. The dampness is finally spilling over his eyelids to race down his cheeks. “I never really expected our marriage to work in the beginning anyways. She was young, flighty. I was already an old man grateful to finally be a husband and father that I was blind to how ill-suited we were. I’m amazed we made it as long as we did. Six horrendous years. When it became just Timothy and I, I was so happy. Like a weight had lifted off my shoulders.”
“We don’t have Quickie Marts in Berkley County, Allen. Where do you live?” I place the pictures down on my desk, side by side. I am a stranger and even I can see how happy Timothy is in the first picture I was given. He’s smiling there. He’s himself. He’s natural. People say that god doesn’t make mistakes. Sometimes, I wonder if that’s true.
“Georgetown. I tried every funeral home there and then one in McClellanville. Word had spread though. That’s why I pushed farther and found myself here.”
“There are other homes though you could have tried, closer to your home.”
“I was drawn here, Tori. That’s all the explanation I have.” His right hand lifts and reaches out to me. I pick up his son’s photos and hand them over. “He was perfect, Ms. Cage. A great student. He’d been accepted to Columbia in the fall. He wanted to be a lawyer. He just went out one night to a friend’s house in Carris and he never came back.”
“I’m sure he was a wonderful person, Allen and I’m so sorry he’s gone.” I wonder for a moment, what would have drawn Allen to me. Normally, the spirits that die within this county feel my power and that compels their living relatives to give me the job. But Timothy was from a county over. I would have thought Georgetown too far.
“Will you help me?”
“Allen, you can’t be sure that your son is dead. He could have just taken off.” I try to be reasonable, my hands on my desk, palms up and trying to will him to understand the oddness of his request. “How can we have a funeral without a body? And what if he turns up tomorrow or the next day or a month from now? What will you tell him?”
“My son is gone, Tori. I can feel it. In my bones, my flesh, my heart, my soul. He is gone. And he deserves a proper funeral.”
“We can have a service here, but it would make no sense to go graveside, to bury an empty casket. And would people come?” I imagine for a moment the empty service room, the empty coffin, Allen sitting in a chair trying to get past his grief.
“It won’t be empty.”
“I don’t understand, Allen.”
“Recently, I lost Timothy’s childhood dog to cancer. I’d like to bury him in his place. It will be like I am truly setting my son to rest. Timothy would have liked that. Rosemary was his best friend in the world. A dog always accepts, you see, no matter what you look like. They judge you on your kindness, not on your appearance.” Allen reaches down and gets yet another thing from his briefcase. It’s a pink collar, various colored tags dangling from the webbing. “She’s still with the vet at the moment, in one of their storage freezers.”
I sit in stunned silence, not quite sure what to say. One glance at his face, and there’s only one answer. Only one response that will sit well with my conscience.
“I’ll do it, Allen. I can’t pretend that I really understand, but I’ll do it. When would you like to have the service?”
“Two weeks from today, if you can manage it. It would have been Timothy’s eighteenth birthday.” He’s stopped crying, the truly wet material of his hanky sat on his lap to dampen his pants. “You don’t know what you’re doing for me, Tori. You’re giving an old man some peace.”
“That’s my job, Allen. I’m sorry you had to come all this way to find someone to help. It shouldn’t be that way. It’s nearly in our job descriptions to be understanding and kind.”
When he stands, the hanky floats to the ground as if it is caught in slow motion. A camera, frame by frame, watching its descent. He stares at it before bending down to pick it up along with his briefcase. “Isn’t life strange,” he murmurs, “that some things should happen so fast and others so slow. That sometimes, everything is backwards. Children should never go before their parents. It shouldn’t be possible.”
“You’ll get no argument with me on that accoun
t.” I walk around the desk and pat him on the shoulder. “It’s going to be all right, as all right as it can be in this situation. We’ll give Timothy and Rosemary a proper send off. Something he would have loved. We won’t need to worry about the state and government regulations pertaining to the undead. So you’ll save money there—no need to chain and concrete. But, Allen,” I pause, fighting the urge to bite my lip, “maybe he’ll turn up. Don’t give up hope.”
“He was easy to love, now, he’s hard to remember.” Allen is in a daze, perhaps from relief at finally finding someone who would listen and understand. I lead him to the door, applying gently pressure on his back. His head seems to clear a little when the wintery breeze outside hits him in the face. “Oh, I almost forgot. Timothy’s boyfriend would like to say a few words at the service.”
I don’t comment on the boyfriend. “Sure, that’ll be special.”
“You’re kind not to say anything. Most people I tell wonder why he wouldn’t date a girl if he identified as a boy. They don’t understand that loving someone has nothing to do with gender. At least, it didn’t in my Timothy’s case.” His hands are shaking a little, the briefcase knocking softly against his thighs with a soft thump, thump, thump.
“Allen, I don’t judge. I try not to at least. Sometimes, I prove I’m human and I think things that aren’t understanding or kind. But I can say, honest to god, that I do my best to be accepting.”
Tears are threatening within Allen’s tired, slate-grey eyes. “Thank you, Tori. I don’t think I actually said that.”
“You did, maybe not with words, but you did.” I don’t leave the door open to make sure he makes it to his car. The front steps and pathway are clear, thanks to Max and Dean, and I don’t worry he will fall. Besides, I’m having one of those moments where my insides are threatening to collapse and I need to lean against the wall and catch my breath.
The world is a sad place. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar, an idiot, or totally delusional.
Chapter Three
After I’ve pulled myself together—together enough to function at least—I return to my desk and pull out my organizer. The beginning of January and we’ve already booked four funerals. It’s somewhat of a relief that, aside from Timothy, the others were elderly when they passed, a good long life behind them.
I skim my index finger over the dates. Monday we have the Donahue Service, everything’s sorted for that. He’s ready to go downstairs. I shudder thinking about working on his body. Mr. Donahue was… not a kind man in life, no matter what his obit might say. Wednesday we have Mrs. Delia Hawthorn. There’s less to do for that as her body’s being shipped from Pennsylvania already embalmed and ready for service. And then on Friday, we’re doing the funeral for Evelyn Leeds, a recluse that no one had seen for nearly three years. She had family somewhere that she hadn’t seen in years, and a will, but no funeral arrangements… and apparently no insurance and no money in her bank account to pay for anything. Terrance asked me to do it pro bono. He’s done that before—he hates to see anyone be handled by the county. And he couldn’t track down her family, though he was going to keep trying.
With the county handling things, it’s the barest of bare, not a grain of sentimentality attached. I didn’t know Evelyn, so I can’t do much better with that last part, but I can give her a decent coffin—one that’s a bit banged up from shipping and would have been sold at discount anyways—and a burial with a witness who does care. I’m not sure Max will come, but I know Dean will and he’ll bring Mei. They’ve been dating for a few weeks now, having met when she’d dropped off a bunch of food for us one afternoon. Maybe I could even get Mei’s family to come. Her culture holds the elderly in high regard.
I can’t help but smile when I see that next weekend is empty, not a single funeral or client or anything work-related. I’m going to do my best to keep it that way. Kyle will be pleased. Maybe we’ll even go camping, we’ve talked about that. He’s asked to see Grandmother’s house near Hellhole Bay too, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’ve not been back in nearly a year and I pay someone else to check on the property and keep it up.
That place scares me, no matter how old I am or how much power I have.
If I could, I’d sell the property. Grandmother made both me and dad promise to keep it in the family though. We don’t know why. It’s not a lovely house, not even a little charming. It’s just a rundown rambler with a tin roof. The windows aren’t even framed by shutters. Someday, I assume I’ll discover why she didn’t want it sold.
When I go back upstairs, Kyle has left for the bar. He opens it around noon now, not caring to cater to the earlier, lonelier crowd. Jim didn’t mind those folks—the morning and early afternoon drinkers. He said he had to open to give them somewhere to go; otherwise they might channel their loneliness into something else, something like suicide.
I think about next weekend and how I’ve got absolutely nothing scheduled. Kyle will leave the bar in the hands of Mikey, the man he employed two months ago—an ex-con with a heart of gold, or so Kyle says. I don’t particularly trust him, but that could be my prejudice talking. Kyle does though, and that’s all that matters. Mikey knew Jim; they were friends in prison. That’s all Kyle needed to give him the gold star of approval. I think he was so ready to accept Mikey because he misses his dad more than he’ll admit, but I won’t say that to him.
I was surprised how fast Kyle took to the role of bar owner, leaving his psychology degree behind. I’ve asked him about it a few times, but he seems to really believe he’s doing good running Jim’s, that he’s helping people more now than ever. He has live music several nights a week—uplifting stuff, stuff he would have recommended to certain people when he was a therapist. It draws in a different crowd usually, but sometimes his regulars stop by and stay a song or two. And he seems to love talking to his patrons. He seems to really care.
Jim had a good heart for the most part. He was broken in places, sometimes amoral. Kyle put a good heart to shame though. He was a great heart. An excellent human being. He loved people. And they seemed to love him. Business had never been better at the bar.
Changing into my running clothes and the brand new Nikes I’d had to buy because I’d already worn out my other pair what with running and the defense classes, I stretch against the sofa. All the while, I stare out the bay window at the lake. Again, I notice the difference of it, but I still can’t put my finger on what it is. It is just… different. Different in the way you look if you part your hair in the middle instead of on the side. A subtle change that most people wouldn’t notice, one that I hadn’t noticed until recently.
My phone buzzes against the kitchen counter as I’m leaving. It’s Dean.
“Hey. What’s up?” I cock my head to wedge the phone between my cheek and shoulder as I bend down and grasp the bottoms of my shoes with both hands. I don’t jump up and down as I stretch. You’ll see people do that on movies and exercise videos, but it really is better to just bend down as far as you can and hold the position, letting things stretch out slowly. Jerking your body around is never good… I mean… unless it’s a result of rough play in the bedroom.
“I was wondering if you’d mind if I met Mei at your place for our date?” Dean sounds both nervous and like he feels weird asking. He should feel weird. The funeral parlor isn’t a community meet-up. Still though, it’s for Mei and Dean. I didn’t really care that much.
“I don’t mind, but why?” I pull out of the slow stretch and clasp my hands behind my back, straightening out the angled position of my elbow until my arms protest and my back cracks. It makes the fading scar from Blackthorn’s barbed appendage sting a little. I nearly lose the phone in the process of stretching, but I let my hands fall loose just as it starts sliding from between my cheek and shoulder.
Dean’s swallow is audible. “Her dad isn’t too happy about her even being friends with me and lately he’s been tracking the GPS on her phone. She told him she was hanging out with you t
onight so he wouldn’t give her the twenty questions.”
“That’s ridiculous. He does realize she’s a college student now, right? Not only that, but she’s my age. We’re way past curfews. He can’t dictate who she dates,” I say, bending down and retying my right shoe. The laces were slightly too long and I’m just clumsy enough to have tripped over the low-hanging bow. This time, I double knot and then do the same to the other shoe. “Wait, scratch that. I forget it’s Mei’s father we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, I’m not a good Chinese boy, Tori. She brought me to dinner last week and I swear World War Four was going to start. And I was only there as a friend. I mean, I think they suspect something more is going on, but we aren’t going to confirm that and start the bombs dropping. Besides, Mei still needs the money and she’s working nights and weekends to pay for books that her scholarship won’t cover,” Dean speaks fast.
“Don’t even joke about another war,” I admonish and then sigh. “Sure, meet her over here. Even hang out downstairs if you want to.”
“You’re the best, Tori,” Dean says, his words flooded with relief. He’d expected me to say no, I think. Jeez, I’m a good boss and generous if I don’t toot my own horn. Although… maybe I have been a little more demanding lately. Dean’s serious about becoming a mortician in his own right and I want him to know what that really means, because it affects every part of your life. It’s not just a job.
“Don’t thank me too quickly. I think you both just need to man up and face good old Dad.”
“We will. It’s just…” Dean hesitates and I fill in the obvious for him.
“It’s complicated. Hey, I get it.” And I really did. I was dating a perfectly normal human guy and he had absolutely no idea that I was a zombie-raising, fairy Blood Queen. Every relationship has its problems. Right?
“I’m going for a run. What time’s the date?”
“Six,” Dean says happily. I’m glad he and Mei have found one another.