by Molly Harper
She didn’t want to give anybody false hope, even if it was just a mediocre understanding of Uncle Bob’s files.
A rumbling in the distance signaled the arrival of the McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop hearse. The classic old Cadillac rode smoothly and silently over the bumpy gravel. The only thing wrecking the eerily graceful sight was her cousin Frankie waving her arms like a lunatic from the passenger seat. Frankie’s Cheetos-orange hair stood out in violent contrast to the plush dark interior.
Junior McCready’s eye roll could be seen from the table, but he brought the hearse to a stop beside his family’s cabin. Frankie was out of the car like a jackrabbit, her long, thin limbs a-gaggle as she launched herself at her cousin. Stan, who had been riding in the back of the vehicle—Marianne paused to shudder—unfolded his long frame from the car and followed his energetic niece down the driveway.
“YOU’RE HERE!” Frankie shrieked, nearly toppling Marianne.
“We’re going to have so much fun this summer,” Frankie said. “Shenanigans aplenty.”
“Just remember, you’re eighteen now,” Uncle Stan drawled. “You can be charged as an adult.”
“That’s assumin’ that I will be caught,” Frankie sassed him, pushing him along the bench seat and making a space for herself. Leslie had already fixed Frankie a plate containing all her favorites and was pouring a glass of sweet tea to wash it down.
Stan grimaced but accepted the manhandling with grace. He and Frankie shared a bond Marianne did not understand. Donna had always claimed that Frankie had served as a surrogate daughter after Stan’s family disappeared. Marianne suspected it had more to do with the bone marrow Stan had donated to help Frankie recover from leukemia. Frankie had multiple doses of McCready piss-and-vinegar running through her veins, and she just wouldn’t accept Stan strong-arming her away. Still, it was weird to see perky, colorful Frankie chatting it up with the human personification of Eeyore.
Marianne was pulled from these strange considerations as her father’s long arms wrapped around her and pulled her into a hug that smelled of disinfectant and tobacco, a combination that should not have smelled good but somehow did because it was her dad.
“Hey there, butterbean,” Junior rumbled.
“Hey, Daddy.”
And finally, Marianne felt at home.
3
MARIANNE HAD FORGOTTEN how godawful bloated she could feel after a pig smoke.
She leaned her forehead against the dash of Uncle Bob’s immaculately clean pickup, waiting for him to drive her in to work the next morning. Last night’s dinner had been delicious, of course, like everything Tootie and Leslie cooked, but her body was no longer used to absorbing that much pork in a single sitting. She was going to have to pace herself if she was going to keep her relatively fabulous wardrobe of outlet buys intact for fall. Plus, in all the eating and catching up and cleaning up and somehow more eating the night before, she hadn’t found time to talk to her dad. Her mama was not going to be pleased about that.
Marianne cranked the air-conditioning up to the max. She’d started Bob’s truck before he even came out of his house, knowing they would need the AC to fight off summer’s first sticky touches. Vehicles were one of the few things considered communal on the McCready compound. So many of them were used for business purposes, it didn’t make sense for only one person to have the keys, so a ridiculous number of extra sets were floating around. It only became a problem when your purse was too damn small for your keychain.
Marianne was supposed to ride in to work with her dad that morning, giving them an opportunity for bonding time her mama insisted they needed, but he’d been called in to deal with a fatal boat mishap near the Sackett Dam.
In addition to being the lone funeral director in town, her dad also worked as the county coroner. The funeral home served as the county morgue, since the nearest hospital was almost thirty minutes’ drive away. It was a common practice in small towns, but it was pretty funny to see Junior’s name on the ballot every election. As if someone else were qualified to be coroner or even wanted the job.
Marianne had taken some teasing from classmates over her father’s occupation . . . and she’d been sent to the principal’s office on more than one occasion for walloping those kids into the ground. To this day, she resented the implication that her dad was creepy or violent because he happened to make a living preparing bodies for burial. He took what he did very seriously. He gave dignity to the dead. He did a job no one else wanted but everybody needed. He took care of friends, teachers, even occasionally relatives, something no one should be asked to do, because he didn’t trust anyone else to do it respectfully.
So this morning, she was riding with her uncle Bob, which wasn’t a hardship, unless he tried to play Conway Twitty. Nobody should be subjected to Conway Twitty at this unholy hour.
“Mornin’,” Bob called cheerfully, yanking the truck door open.
“You’re lettin’ out the bought air,” Marianne told him as he handed in two huge coffee mugs. He snickered, climbing into the driver’s seat.
“Is this what I think it is?” she asked.
“Leslie’s one hundred percent guaranteed high-octane day-starter,” Bob crowed, revving the truck engine.
Marianne took a deep breath and socked back two big mouthfuls of the stout, almost thick coffee. “Dear sweet baby Jesus in his manger,” she exclaimed, coughing as the brew rolled down her windpipe.
Uncle Bob smiled beatifically at her, as if his wife’s making coffee that could double as jet fuel were the most wonderful thing in creation. “I’m really happy to have you in the office this summer, hon. It’s the beginning of our busy season, you know. And I could use the extra hands.”
Marianne nodded weakly. Sadly, the summer and the holiday seasons were the busiest for funeral homes. Summer, because the warm months tended to bring people out of their homes to try activities that went beyond their athletic ability and common sense; and holidays, because senior citizens seemed to try to hold on for “one more Christmas” before their bodies finally let them know that enough was enough. She took another sip, knowing she’d need to finish at least a fourth of the cup to face her morning. “So, who do we have on the schedule today, Uncle Bob?”
“Let’s see, we got Oscar Gaskill’s visitation,” he said, guiding the truck expertly over the bumps of the driveway and easing them onto the state road. “He was real proud of you, hon, goin’ off to college and doin’ so well for yourself. He asked about you every time he saw us. We thought he was gonna tear up when your daddy told him about your law school application, but Oscar blamed it on ragweed.”
Marianne smiled into her coffee cup. Mr. Gaskill had only been prone to shows of emotion if they were likely to scare his students into enthusiasm for quadratic equations.
Uncle Bob continued, “And Maisie Trinkitt’s doctors say she’s on her last days at the hospice. Poor sweet gal got diagnosed with end-stage cancer a few months back, before she even knew what was happening, and just slipped downhill. She’s been in a coma for about a month.”
Marianne nodded. Though it sounded ghoulish, it wasn’t uncommon for family members to come to McCready’s before a desperately ill person passed, just to get the most tedious details down before they were mired in the mind-numbing fog of grief. It seemed to help them to have something to focus on and accomplish, when they could do so little to improve their loved one’s condition. “That’s a shame, I like Miss Maisie.”
“Well, her funeral’s not gonna be an open-and-shut deal. Maisie’s special gentleman friend is comin’ in to talk about cremation options, right before her children are comin’ in to talk about which casket they want.”
“Mr. Burt’s been livin’ with Miss Maisie for almost twenty years now. Don’t you think we can call him something a little bit more than her ‘gentleman friend’? The only reason they didn’t get married is that
Miss Maisie’s children are a pack of racist assholes.”
“Watch it, or Frankie and Tootie will have you dropping change in the swear jar.”
“Fine, they’re a bunch of racist assholes.”
“Charming.”
“I learned it by watching you, Uncle Bob.”
Uncle Bob snorted, probably remembering the time that little Marianne had toddled into the living room during Thanksgiving and repeated the most colorful bits of Bob’s advice to the UGA football team. Donna had never quite forgiven him.
“I know it’s not right. Burt Beacham did more for Miss Maisie than any one of her kids ever did in her last years. Hell, he did more for her than her husband did in her whole life. He loves that woman somethin’ fierce. But they didn’t get married and he’s not her official next of kin. And I can only go by the paperwork, hon. You know how these things work.”
Uncle Bob wasn’t just referring to the legalities of funereal custom. This was how small towns that hadn’t quite caught up to the more progressive Southern cities worked. Burt Beacham was a black man who happened to fall in love with a white widow while they were in their fifties. But because her grown children worshipped the memory of their jackass of a father, Miss Maisie refused to marry Mr. Burt. She claimed it was too soon for “the children,” even two decades later, but it was more likely that she knew they’d never speak to her again. So Mr. Burt had pretended to go home to his own house down the street every night, only to sneak back to Miss Maisie’s to sleep in their bed.
“I know.” Marianne nodded. “It’s just sad.”
“It is. Some people still aren’t comfortable with that sort of thing around here,” he said. “Telling them to hurry the hell up and get used to it won’t get them there any faster.”
Marianne made a noise between a snort and a harrumph as they pulled into the McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop parking lot. The expansive gravel lot opened up right onto the water, giving a pretty spectacular view of the widest section of Lake Sackett.
The funeral home was freshly painted in an understated cream with brass accents—incredibly elegant for a building with the words bait shop attached to it. While half of the visitors might be there for water sports and fishing, E.J.J. wanted the mourners to feel that their grief was respected, too.
E.J.J. also insisted that the landscaping be kept neat and the gravel free of trash. When Duffy and Marianne were kids, it had been their job to pick the litter out of the parking lot with sharpened broomsticks. Frankie was generally excused because she was just getting out of the hospital or getting ready to go into one.
The main McCready’s building was open in the middle, in a dog run configuration, to allow visitors to see through to the water and a three-pronged dock. The neatly painted red shop, Jack’s Tackle and Stuff, stood at the end of the far left prong. Sarah’s Snack Shack, also red and decorated with Leslie’s collection of vintage Coke memorabilia, was situated on the dock on the right. The docks were busy, with dozens of boaters lining up for gas, snacks, bait, and gear, already hours later than the more dedicated fishermen, who knew the prime hours started right before sunrise.
In years past, on the rare days when Donna didn’t have clients lined up for fishing excursions, she’d drag Duffy and Marianne out of bed, slap a couple of Leslie’s Breakfast Sticks into their hands, and put them on the family skip. Duffy always fell right into step beside their mother, pulling crappie into the boat so fast, they barely had time to bait the hooks before catching another. Marianne preferred reading from under a big sun hat, something Donna had never cared for, but likewise never criticized. Those quiet mornings of feeling peaceful but not alone were some of her favorite memories, before her need to separate from her family had become unmanageable.
Marianne climbed out of the truck and was immediately struck by the smell of exhaust and hot frying oil. That meant Leslie was hard at work at Sarah’s Snack Shack, slinging boxed lunches and corn dogs as fast as she could finish them. Maybe Marianne could grab a Breakfast Stick, Leslie’s original portable breakfast creation involving bacon wrapped around a sausage, stuffed with cheese, dipped in egg batter, and deep-fried. For a tiny woman, she was a bit obsessive about bubbling canola oil.
Marianne and Bob rushed through the office door to the blessed cool of an industrial air conditioner. The office hallway was lined with paint-by-number Jesuses, the work of her late great-aunt Sarah, who’d had no artistic talent but a lot of enthusiasm. The things had given Marianne and Duffy nightmares when they were little, but no one had the heart to take them down. So the much beloved ancestor was memorialized here in the rear of the building . . . where customers never ever ventured.
E.J.J. was waiting in Bob’s office, searching through the filing cabinet like a man on a mission. He had his blue-striped tie slung over the shoulder of his suit jacket to keep it from getting caught on the folders.
“Grandpa? You’re up and at it early,” Marianne said, dropping her purse on the desk.
“I’m lookin’ to see if Maisie Trinkitt left any sort of preplanned service contract, a payment, anything.”
Bob shook his head. “No, Burt said that while she was still lucid, she left her written funeral instructions in an envelope in her bill drawer with a blank check made out to McCready’s.”
“Well, the Trinkitt kids are already here and raisin’ ten kinds of hell because they don’t like what Maisie’s got planned. They’re sayin’ it’s disrespectful and they won’t have it.”
Marianne snickered into her coffee. The Trinkitt “kids” were all in their midthirties to forties, but they were awfully muleheaded, thanks to their daddy’s influence. E.J.J. didn’t cotton to that sort of thing. He also didn’t cotton to snickers when he was frustrated.
“Sorry,” she said, clearing her throat.
“The Trinkitt kids are here already?” Bob exclaimed. “But they’re not scheduled to come in until ten! Burt Beacham is supposed to be here in twenty—”
Uncle Bob’s voice drifted off as the thud of scuffling and ceramic breaking sounded out from the front of the building. “Uh-oh.”
Bob took off with surprising speed for someone his age. Grandpa E.J.J., with his bad knee, and Marianne, with her office-wear heels, followed at an equally frantic but slower pace. They ran into the plush sales office/showroom to find the display caskets knocked to the floor. Several urns lay shattered on the plush carpet. Burt Beacham was pulling at the collar of his shirt, which seemed to have been twisted around his neck. And Uncle Bob was struggling to keep Lemm Trinkitt in a hammerlock. It should have seemed out of place, her genial uncle throwing himself into a fight like he’d just been tagged in, but this was not the first hissy fit thrown in the venerable halls of McCready’s. Uncle Bob knew how to hold his own.
Laurie Trinkitt, who was a good fifteen years older than Marianne but lingered around the Sackett County High School party scene to the point where it got sort of sad, was holding a heavy metal memorial urn over her head as if she was going to bring it crashing down on Uncle Bob as soon as his back was turned. The ruins of several of the more fragile models lay broken around her feet. Roy Trinkitt, the baby of the family, was glancing between his siblings and the door, as if he couldn’t figure out whether to help them or flee before charges were pressed.
“What in the Sam Hill do y’all think you’re doin’!” E.J.J. thundered in the voice that would have served him well as a fire-and-brimstone preacher . . . or maybe an elementary school principal. “This is not some honky-tonk where you brawl out your problems. Sit down and shut up so we can figure out what’s what.”
Lemm stopped struggling, but was none too gentle in the way he shoved away from Uncle Bob. Jowly and thick of neck, Lemm rose to his considerable full height, shot his cuffs, and straightened his tie over his ballooning belly. He had followed Bill Trinkitt into the family’s bass boat dealership and, just like his daddy, somehow tho
ught that made him a pillar of the community. He did not appreciate being told no or any of its variations, and was prone to citing his many civic contributions and sports team sponsorships when he heard it. “I don’t appreciate bein’ spoken to that way, E.J.J. That’s not how I treat payin’ customers.”
“Well, you’re not a payin’ customer, Lemm, your mama is. But you’re welcome to take your business to some other funeral home in town if you don’t like it.”
Lemm harrumphed and flopped down into the comfortable chair that flanked the sales desk, which by all rights should have gone to Burt, as the most senior man in the room who had recently been assaulted.
“Mr. Burt, are you all right?” Marianne asked quietly. “Can I get you some water or an ambulance or anything?”
Burt Beacham nodded his thick head of salt-and-pepper hair. His skin, dark and weathered by time, was set with disappointment, but his eyes were just as kind as ever. “I’m fine, Marianne. Thank you. It’s good to see you.”
“You too. I wish it was under better circumstances. And that you weren’t surrounded by . . .” Marianne looked to Laurie and saw that she still had the urn held over her head. She huffed under her breath, “Trinkitts.”
She crossed the soft beige carpet and took the urn out of Laurie’s hands. “Give me that.”
Laurie, who was dressed in red cowboy boots, too much gold-plate jewelry, black jeans, and a zebra-print blouse as sheer as it was low-cut, gave Marianne a sulky look. “I’m goin’ outside for a smoke.”
“Classy,” Marianne grumbled, putting the urn back on its little display shelf on the far wall. She began matching the unbroken urns to their lids and returning them to their displays. She’d always found the various shapes and materials of the urns to be fascinating. Some people chose to display the cremains of their loved ones in very dignified polished metal containers. Others chose little boxes in the shape of a football, a star, or their favorite motorcycle.