by Amy Cross
Eventually the service finishes and sad music plays while the coffin is slid through a small hatch, presumably so we can go outside for the burial. Everyone in the church starts talking in hushed tones as they start filing out, and a procession of well-wishers approaches my father, telling him how beautiful they thought the service has been so far. It's weird hearing them all saying more or less the same thing, and I start to realize just how formal and fake the whole thing has become; it's as if these people are scared of saying anything personal, and would rather just say what they think they need to say in order to fit in with the conventions of a funeral service. I wish one of them would have the guts to say something that's honest, even if it doesn't make my mother sound like some kind of angel.
"And look at this gorgeous little lady," says one of the old women, ruffling my hair. "Your mother would be so proud of you, honey."
I smile, even though I'm cringing inside. Why the hell would my mother be proud of me for coming to her funeral? All I had to do was sit there and listen.
"Dad," I say, tugging at his arm. "How old was Mom when she died?"
"She was thirty-five," he says. "Why?"
"Just wondering," I reply. Thirty-five. Does that mean she lived thirty-five bland, conforming years during which she just did as she was told and never questioned anything? Suddenly I'm seeing my mother in an entirely new light, and I can't help wondering whether she wasted her life. If she could hear my thoughts now, would she really be proud of me? Sometimes, I used to catch her giving me a weird, worried look, as if there was something about me that unsettled her. At the time, I just assumed she was picking up on the fact that I can be a bit strange sometimes, but now I'm wondering if she was genuinely concerned about the fact that I don't seem to fit in with the rest of the world.
"Come on, Juliet," my father says, taking my hand. "Time to go outside. Unless you want to cry first, in which case I can take you around the corner for a moment."
I shake my head.
"You sure?"
I nod.
"Perfect," he says, smiling broadly. "You're being so good today, Juliet. If you keep this up, I might just take you for ice cream this afternoon. Would you like that?"
I pause for a moment, and then finally I nod again. It's what he wants, and I'm getting better at playing the game.
Feeling a little nervous, I allow him to lead me along the aisle and out into the cemetery. I'm very aware that lots of people are watching me, and that they're all probably thinking I'm a brave little girl. I wish they could hear my real thoughts, and I wish they knew that I'd happily cut off all their heads just so I could plant them in the ground and see if they grow. Some of them, the more perceptive ones, have probably already started to suspect that I'm a little strange, but they're far too polite to say anything. Sometimes I want to blend in with them, to act like everyone else and to make them think I'm totally normal, but other times I want to go to the other extreme: I want to let them see the real me. I want them to see that I'm bad. If only they knew that I'm planning to come back tonight and dig up the coffin.
"Just be brave for a little longer," my father says as he leads me across the grass, toward a spot over by the wall where many of the people have gathered.
"Is this where we're going to bury her?" I ask.
"Yes," he says. "It won't take too long. Don't be afraid to cry."
"I won't," I reply, but as we get closer to the spot, I see that the hole in the ground is tiny. It's barely a couple of feet square, clearly not enough to fit a whole coffin, not even if they slid it in vertically. "What's that?" I ask.
"That's the grave," he replies as we reach the spot and stand with the others.
"But..." I look over at the priest, and I see a small wooden box on the ground in front of him. "Where's the coffin?" I ask.
"Your mother was cremated," my father says.
"What does that mean?" I look up at him, feeling a sinking feeling in my stomach.
"It means her body was turned to ashes, and now we're going to bury the ashes in the ground."
"Bury the..." I pause for a moment, trying to understand what's happening. Why would they burn her body and then put the ashes in a box? Why would they deprive her of the opportunity to rot? Why would they deprive me of the opportunity to watch? None of this makes sense. "Where's the coffin?" I ask again, feeling as if I might start crying. I look back the way we came, hoping to see that this is all a trick.
"It's okay," my father says, squeezing my hand. "It was very quick, and it's what she wanted."
"She wanted to be burned?" I ask.
"We talked about it," he says. "Maybe we should discuss it properly later, Juliet. I'll answer any questions you have."
"But her body..." I say, staring at the little box. "Where... Where's her actual body?"
"It's all in there," he says. "They managed to fit it all in. She's just ash now, honey. She's gone back to how things were at the start of life. It's a perfectly natural process."
As I stare at the little box, I realize that he must have done this on purpose. Somehow, he guessed that I'd come back to dig up the coffin and look at the body, so he arranged for someone to burn my mother to little pieces. I guess this is his way of trying to stop me from doing something weird. After all, he knows that I'd never dig up a box of ashes, since there'd be no point. If I want to see ashes, I can just go look in the fireplace. A real human body, on the other hand, would have been a rare experience, and I feel as if I've just been robbed of something special. I was going to reconnect with my mother, to understand the final moments of her body, and now my father has ripped that opportunity away from me. There's no going back; her ashes can't be put back together so that her body exists again. It's all over, and I have no further interest in this ceremony.
"Dear friends," the priest says, "we come now to the final part of the service, and the point at which we shall place Amanda's ashes in the ground and offer her to God, secure in the knowledge that he will take her into his heart and afford her a place by his side."
As he continues to talk, I stare bitterly at the box. It's not right that I've been prevented from digging her up, and I'm feeling angrier than I've ever felt before. Almost shaking with rage, I fight the urge to turn and hit my father. The last thing I want to do right now is add to the perception that I'm weird. All I wanted was to dig my mother up and watch her rot, and he's snatched that opportunity away for no reason other than pure malice and spite. If I'm going to punish him, though, I'll have to be smart and I'll have to wait a while until I can come up with a good plan. He'll pay for this, though. I don't know how, not yet, but I'll make him wish he'd never done this.
Chapter Five
Today
"Lost your mind yet?" asks Lizzie McGuigan, the night nurse, as she walks into the office.
"What?" I ask, turning to her.
"Sitting with the old charmer all night," she continues, grinning. "Don't get me wrong, she wasn't a bad egg, not when she was up and about. But now she's a vegetable, she's hardly a fucking laugh riot. Know what I mean?"
"I'm fine," I say. "I'm just grabbing a cup of coffee." It's 2am and after four hours of sitting with Ruth Brown, I've started feeling pretty drowsy. I'm allowed out of the room for up to ten minutes every two hours, so I figured I might as well come and get a caffeine fix. The last thing I want to do is fall asleep while I'm on a death watch.
"Rather you than me," she says. She places another cup on the table, which I assume means that she wants some coffee as well. "I can't fucking stand doing the death watch. Creeps me out." She laughs. "There's nothing about this place that bothers me, but the fucking death watch is one morbid-ass drag. I don't know why, but it always kind of gives me the creeps. I'm not superstitious or anything like that, but it still gives me a fucking chill." She stares at me for a moment. "Sure you're not cracking up?"
I shrug. "Don't think so." I stir my cup of coffee, but Lizzie is still watching me. "Do I seem like I'm cracking up?" I as
k eventually.
"Nah," she replies. "No more than the rest of us, anyway."
Smiling politely, I put the spoon in the sink.
"One of the first nights I started working here," Lizzie continues, picking up her cup of coffee as soon as I've poured, "I got put on the death watch. Some old guy, went by the name of..." She pauses for a moment. "Fuck, I don't remember. This was a few years ago. Anyway, I had to sit and watch him all night, and he was sick as hell, but he never quite managed to die. So I was back the next night. Same thing happened. Third night, I was convinced he'd pop off, but did he? Fuck, no. Five nights I sat there with him until he finally showed me some fucking mercy and passed."
"Five nights?" I say, a little shocked.
"Uh-huh." She smiles as she sips from her cup of coffee. "Five nights of watching the old chipper edge closer and closer to his final breath. Again, nice guy, but no-one needs to sit and stare at someone dying." She laughs. "So how'd you feel about the prospect of sitting with Ruth Brown for the next five nights?"
I stare at her.
"That's, like, nearly fifty hours," she continues. "Fifty hours with a dying woman. Doesn't sound so great when you put it like that, does it?"
"I guess not," I reply.
"Relax," she says, nudging my arm, "I'm mostly kidding. If she doesn't die tonight, she'll die tomorrow. Trust me, you can tell. They get this weird, sunken feeling in their face, and right toward the end there's this funny smell, like ammonia mixed with lavender. I can't explain it, but it's definitely there. You ask any nurse and they'll tell you the same thing. It's almost as if something changes deep inside."
"I should get back," I say quietly, carrying my cup over to the door.
"And they fart," Lizzie says suddenly.
I turn back to face her. "What?"
"The old people. They fart, even when they're close to death. Then when they finally die, some of the fuckers shit themselves too. All their muscles relax, and anything in the poop chute just comes slipping on out. It's kinda gross if you're not expecting it." She smiles. "You wait and see. In fact, we can make it interesting. I'll be you ten dollars she shits herself when she dies."
I stare at her.
"Seriously," she continues, with a big grin on her face. "Ten dollars. What do you say?"
"No," I say. "Thanks."
"Well, I'm right anyway," she says. "Just make sure you don't let it take you by surprise. There's nothing weirder than standing next to someone who's just died, and then they fart or shit their pants."
"Yeah," I say politely, before hurrying out of the office and heading back toward Ruth Brown's room. I'm definitely not a prude, but I can't help thinking that Lizzie can be a little rude about the residents sometimes. She tends to talk about them as if they're all stupid, sometimes even to their faces, whereas my limited experience so far suggests that most of them are completely lucid and able to maintain a proper conversation. Maybe over time Lizzie has been worn down by doing this job for so long, but right now I feel as if I want to be really careful not to patronize any of the residents, even if that means I have to spend a little longer dealing with each problem that comes up. I just don't want to become totally cynical. I don't want to be like Lizzie.
"Hey," I say as I step back into Ruth Brown's room. It looks like nothing has changed; she's still flat on her back, with her eyes closed, breathing slowly but resolutely. It's weird, but as I go and sit back down in my chair, I can't help thinking that there's something slightly noble about Ruth Brown, and about the way she's calmly and silently waiting for death. Then again, just as Lizzie is too hard on the residents, maybe I'm going too far the other way; maybe I'm romanticizing the whole thing.
As I drink my coffee, I go back to reading the book I brought with me tonight, and eventually I start to perk up a little. I glance up at Ruth Brown from time to time, just to make sure that she's still breathing, but overall I'm starting to feel fairly relaxed. In fact, I become so engrossed in my book, I start leaving longer and longer periods between each time I check on her; I even start to hear a faint rustling sound coming from nearby, but I don't immediately look up until suddenly I realize that something has started moving in the room. My first thought is that Jennifer Mathis has returned, so I pause for a moment before looking up.
Ruth Brown is standing right in front of me.
My blood immediately chills as I look into her eyes and find that she's staring straight back at me. Before, her eyes were closed and her head was resting on the pillow; now, her eyes are open and she's out of bed, towering over me. Although they're milky white and clouded, there's no doubt that those eyes are trained directly on me, and for a moment I have no idea what to say or do.
"Are you okay?" I ask eventually, my heart pounding. I shift my chair back a little, but to my shock she slowly steps forward and follows me.
Although my first instinct is to run for help, I feel as if I need to prove to Lizzie that I can handle the situation. Getting up from the chair, I cautiously step away from Ruth, and this time she turns her head to watch me but she doesn't actually follow. I pause for a moment and take a deep breath, trying to work out what to do. There's no way she's supposed to be able to get out of bed, and the look of fierce determination in her eyes is kind of creepy.
"My name's Juliet," I say, my voice quivering a little. "Juliet Collier."
She just continues to stare at me. From what I've been told, Ruth hasn't responded to anyone for a few months now, so the fact that she suddenly seems interested in me is... weird, and unnerving. I want to go and find Lizzie and tell him to get his ass in here, but if I did that, it'd be like I'm admitting I can't handle a difficult situation.
"If you want something," I stammer, "you'll have to give me a clue. I can't..." My voice trails off, and I realize I'm being a total bitch. This old lady is possibly in her final moments of life, and I'm acting as if she's some kind of monster. Taking a deep breath, I try to get my thoughts back under control. "My name's Juliet Collier," I say again, hoping to somehow get her to start talking. "I'm not a nurse. I'm just the night girl. I don't know much about what you need, but I'm happy to help with anything. You just have to tell me, that's all."
She stares at me.
"Please," I continue. "Just give me some kind of clue. I don't think I can work it out." I take my phone out of my pocket and start looking for Lizzie's number. "I'm going to get a nurse to come along, okay?"
Slowly, she shakes her head.
"You don't want a nurse?" I ask. "What do you want?"
Her bones creaking, she steps forward, heading straight for me. I back slowly out of the room until finally she follows me into the corridor. Whatever she wants, it seems to involve coming straight toward me, but I keep trying to remind myself that there's nothing dangerous about this situation: whatever Ruth Brown wants, she can't hurt me.
"You," she says suddenly, her voice cracking as she stumbles and falls to the ground with a horrifying cracking sound, as if several of her bones have broken.
"Fuck!" I shout, stepping back. For a moment, I just stand there, watching as she tries and fails to get back on her feet. Eventually, she reaches up toward me, as if she wants me to help her.
"You're hurt," I say, desperate to not let her touch me. My heart's pounding, and I feel totally unable to deal with this situation. If I try to help her up, I might cause even more damage. "I need to get someone who can help you properly. I'm just the night girl. I'm just an assistant."
"Take me home," she groans, grabbing my leg and pulling at me. I try to slip free, but her grip is surprisingly strong and I really don't want to hurt her. She stares up at me with milky white eyes. "I don't want to be here," she says, straining to raise her voice. "Take me home!"
Chapter Six
Eleven years ago
"You remember Martina, don't you?" my father says as the door opens.
I nod, staring up at the manager of the funeral home. Apparently, we're here so my father can drop off some document
s now that the funeral is over, but I can't help feeling that he's not telling me the whole truth. For one thing, he could just mail the documents, and for another he seems to have put on his best clothes in order to come here. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was trying to impress this woman. He's always been something of a ladies man; it was his affair with a girl from his school that led my mother to divorce him a few years ago, and he's had plenty of girlfriends ever since.
"How are you doing, honey?" Martina asks as she ushers us inside. "What's in your backpack?"
"Juliet's just been to school," my father says. "Haven't you, Juliet?"
I nod again.
"Well that's just great," Martina says, reaching out and ruffling my hair. I don't know why so many people do that to me, but I wish they'd stop. I guess it's because I'm still quite short and they think I'm cute.
"We just came to drop off some forms," my father tells her. "You remember those forms you were telling me about the other day?" It's pretty obvious that he's talking in some kind of stupid code, trying to get Martina to understand why he's really here.
"Of course," she says, seeming a little on edge. "Why don't you come through to the... form-filling room... and we can talk about what we need to... talk about." She smiles, though I can see from the look in her eyes that she's thinking about something else.
"Juliet," my father says, "why don't you just wait here for a few minutes, okay? Just be really, really good and I'll be done soon, and then we can go for ice cream. Would you like that?"
I stare at him. How much ice cream does he think I need?