5. Olivia
OLIVIA
I stand behindthe closed door leading into Alexandra’s viewing, listening to the soft cries and muffled words as her family grieves their loss.
“She looks beautiful,” a female says. “Angelic.”
There’s a murmur of agreement. An underlying thread of appreciation.
My pulse hums.
“They approve?” Ivy whispers as she tiptoes toward me from the hall.
I nod.
“I don’t know why you’re always surprised. You do the best work in Maryland. Probably this side of the country, to be honest. I don’t hear of anyone putting in as much effort or care as you do.”
I may be the best, but the attention to detail comes at a cost.
The family business isn’t as profitable as our competitors’ because we can’t take on as many funerals when our only mortician is an idealist who wants everything to be perfect. I bet my father kicks himself on a daily basis for guiding me into the role.
“It’s not that I’m surprised,” I whisper. “It’s just that grief can trigger unpredictable responses, and I don’t want anyone to be upset with my work.” Like I was with my mother’s presentation.
Her lips had been glued into a thin line. Her makeup, tacky.
I’d wanted to prepare her myself. To bathe her. To massage the stiffness from her limbs and lay her to rest in her casket.
But I’d been too young. Still in high school. With no formal training. And then there was the overwhelming grief.
So instead I live with the unwanted flashbacks of the final moments I saw her, and I don’t want any of our grieving families to endure similar trauma because of me.
“Be careful, Liv.” Ivy links her arm with mine and leads me back to the hall. “You seem like you’re skating toward an unwanted path.” Otherwise known as taking on the grief of our clients.
“I’m not.” I pat her hand. “I promise.”
“If that’s true, then prove it. Come out with me tonight. Let your hair down. Live a little.”
“Hard pass.” I unlink our arms as we walk by the reception area where Allison is fully entranced by whatever she’s tapping away at on her computer. “Not only do I have a crapload of work to do because of Hugo’s absence, but I’m on call due to Dad having the day off.”
“Let me handle any call-outs.” She follows me into the break room. “I can be the designated driver.”
I grab three mugs from the cupboard and fill them with coffee from the drip machine. “You as designated driver? Girlfriend, you wouldn’t know how to go to a club without getting white-girl wasted if your life depended on it.”
“I could so.” Her face falls. “I’m professional when it comes to my work responsibilities.”
I hand over her filled mug, her expression of genuine forlorn shaking away my exhaustion.
Although tongue in cheek, I insulted her. It’s a low blow given how hard she strives to impress my father.
“I know you are, Ive.” I wince in apology. “I was only messing around.”
“So you’ll let me take the van and be on-call tonight while you come out drinking?”
“Nope.” I make my way back into the hall. Ivy follows. “I need to start on next week’s work.”
“You realize you’re going to leave this Earth with cobwebs in places there shouldn’t be, right?” she asks quietly.
I smother a smile as we return to the reception area. “I dealt with the cobwebs a few months ago.” Kind of.
I place a coffee in front of Allison who lunges for the mug.
“You’re the best,” she gushes.
“She is not the best,” Ivy argues, keeping her voice low. “She thinks her dating card is full because of one random guy last summer.”
I scoff. “I didn’t say that.”
“So you don’t still think about him incessantly?” Ivy taunts.
She’s got me there, but that doesn’t prove her point. “Of course I still think about him. He was the only seemingly normal, mentally stable, extremely attractive guy I’ve spoken to in my entire life. No exaggeration.”
Allison pulls a face. “Hon, that only proves you don’t get out enough.”
“Don’t you start.” I shoot her a playfully stern look. “Dating is a minefield in our profession, and I don’t have the social bandwidth to handle the crazies. I already lie about my job to anyone who asks.”
“You mean your grocery delivery guy and the little old lady who lives next door?” Ivy hits me with a smug stare over the rim of her mug, then takes a sip. “They’re the only people you talk to besides us.”
I shrug. “I still stand by my statement.”
“The morbid topics of conversation do get a bit much.” Allison sighs. “I’ve lost count of the amount of immoral questions I’ve been asked by men since working here.”
“Why are they so disgusting?” Ivy cocks her hip against Allison’s desk.
“Because most are probably aspiring serial killers?” I hedge.
She nods. “Probably.”
We all fall quiet, sobering with matching sighs that seem to state how pathetic we consider our love lives.
It’s the varying scale of misery that makes my position so pitiful.
Ivy considers a dry spell anything over two weeks. Allison would be around five to ten.
If either of them knew my sex card is yet to have one hole punched they would throw a fit.
But it’s not like I’m clinging to my virginity.
I would’ve happily given it to the unholy deity from the dive bar. No holds barred. I was enthusiastically willing to be ruined.
If only I’d had the sense to ask for his number before he fled.
“Stop thinking about him,” Ivy mutters. “Those googly eyes of yours are pathetic.”
Allison chuckles. “She definitely gets a look about her when she thinks of him.”
“I was not thinking about him.” I turn my back and start across the room, attempting to hide the blatant lie.
But seriously, those dark eyes. The tailored suit. The playfully arrogant smirk…
I’m still exquisitely scorched from his attention.
“He couldn’t have been that good,” Allison grumbles.
“I agree.” Ivy raises her chin. “What could he have possibly done to get near that imprisoned heart of yours?”
I choke on thin air. “Who says I let him near my heart?” My dusty ovaries, on the other hand…
“Don’t go,” Ivy calls after me. “We need to talk about tonight.”
I pause before the entry to the hall. “So you’ve finished making fun of me?”
“Never.” She grins. “Do you need any help before we close up? Alexandra’s family shouldn’t be too much longer, then I’m done for the day.”
“No, I’m fine. But thanks.” I turn my focus to Allison. “If you can switch the after-hours number to my cell before you leave that would be great.”
She nods. “Sure thing.”
“Liv…” Ivy sighs. “Please let me be on-call tonight. You’re already swamped.”
“I can handle it.” More importantly, I want to show my father I’m not a monumental fuck-up after the Hugo fiasco. The least I can do is put in the extra effort to make this place run smoothly while we’re a man down. “But I really appreciate the offer.”
I return to my prep room.
Turn on my playlist.
Dive into work.
The next decedent on my list is Amisha, a young woman who had been heavily pregnant when she passed.
I wheel her from the cool room and unzip the body bag, my throat tightening when I see the tiny child nestled in her arms.
We don’t cry.
We have to be strong.
Always.
My mother’s words ring in my head, the rule of our family business having been drilled into me since childhood.
If I cried every time something sad happened around here I would’ve lost my mind long ago.
And it’s not like the forensic examiner hadn’t warned me about Amisha’s circumstances. But there’s rarely a more heart-wrenching sight than that of a baby who’s never taken its first breath, resting in the arms of a mother who only got to hold her child in death.
I set up my equipment in silence, turn the air-conditioning down a smidge lower, and let the gentle hum of my music console me as I take my time preparing their bodies.
I barely notice when Ivy wheels Alexandra’s casket back into the cool room. I’m too busy washing Amisha, describing out loud how beautiful her precious daughter is in case she can hear me in the afterlife.
It’s a tough end to an exhausting day—one I don’t realize has passed quicker than normal until I glance at my watch and see it’s close to ten p.m.
“Shit.” I raise my face shield and rub my tired eyes with the back of my gloved hand.
It’s been a long week.
An even longer six months with my father’s newfound love for taking days off. If this is his subtle way of preparing me to take over the business, I don’t like it. I much prefer when he’s the workhorse, putting in the long hours beside me.
I stretch my back, my muscles aching as I massage my thumbs in a circular motion over Amisha’s wrist, kneading away the stiffness to make her limbs more pliable. “I’m going to have to call it a night.”
I continue the gentle manipulation farther along her arm up to her elbow. A yawn hits me, forcing my eyes closed and the mask over my mouth to stretch. “Yep. I definitely need a nap.”
I place Amisha’s arms over her middle, holding them together with a material bandage, before nestling her daughter back against her chest. “I promise I’ll finish up once I get a few hours’ sleep.”
I cover them both in a clean white sheet, yawning the entire time, then wheel them back into the cool room.
I remove my protective gear. Switch off the air conditioner and light. Then drag my heavy feet into the hall. I’d been in an enthusiastic mood for exercise this morning and rode my e-bike to work. There’s no way I’m going to risk returning home the same way at this time of night.
I make my way to the break room, every step like the final yards of a twenty-mile mountain climb, and dramatically collapse onto the two-seater sofa.
I lose consciousness as soon as my head hits the stiff polyester cushion.
The next thing I know I’m jolted awake, my body snapping alert before my brain can catch up.
It takes a few seconds to get my bearings. For the lumbering weight of grogginess to leave my head, and the kink down the right side of my neck to announce itself with a twinge of pain.
Why do I do this to myself?
I should’ve knocked on my dad’s door and asked to sleep in my childhood room. Better yet, given that I’m on-call, I could’ve driven the damn van home instead of thinking I was stuck here because of my bike. “Idiot.”
I shove to my feet. Eye the coffee pot. Check my watch—two a.m.
I could go home to my fabulously comfortable bed… or I could finish preparing Amisha and her daughter so I don’t have to return over the weekend.
I sigh, trudging my feet toward the coffee pot when a loud rumble followed by a weighty smack rumbles through the building.
I freeze. My pulse kicks.
Was that the delivery van door?
I leave the break room and make my way down the hall.
Did I miss a pickup? Or did Ivy take on-call duty even though I told her not to?
She hasn’t been on-call before—at least not on her own. Dad has been with her a few times, but that was before Hugo’s employ?—
Oh, shit.
I stop dead in my tracks before the closed double doors to the delivery room.
Was Ivy right about Hugo coming back to cause trouble?
Shuffling carries from inside the room. I pat my pockets for my cell. Pull out the device just in case I need to call the cops. Then I open one side of the doors and my stomach plummets to my feet with an agonizing whoosh.
A gasp escapes.
Two men dressed in black snap their attention in my direction, the limp body they’re carrying dropped to the cement floor with a sickening thwack.
They draw weapons. Life-threatening, panic-inducing guns.
I turn to stone, my cell a dead weight in my frozen hand.
“What the fuck?” one of them mutters, his narrowed eyes murderous.
The other jabs his firearm in my direction and retreats toward the overhead external door, the now open space partially filled by a white van exactly like the one we use for decedent transportation except for the different license plate. “Don’t move.”
If only I could.
“Who are you?” I pant, my breaths coming thick and fast.
“Grim,” the retreater calls out, focusing past the van into the dark of night. He seems familiar somehow.
I don’t know what to do. Scream? Run? Chance dialing 911 and hope my quick fingers outpace a bullet?
“Grim,” the guy shouts louder.
“Look…” I swallow over my achingly dry throat. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Then shut your fucking mouth,” the remaining man snaps.
I clamp my lips closed. Send out a silent prayer.
Both men turn their attention outside, and I chance a tiny step backward, my entire body trembling.
Footsteps approach from the dark of night. Slow, calm steps that seem like the advance of the devil himself.
My pulse is an erratic mess in comparison. Hard. Fast. Chaotic.
Then the Grim they’re calling to walks beneath the delivery room door, bypassing the doppelg?nger van, the man’s familiar midnight gaze meeting mine.
Relief overwhelms me. My heart pitter-patters.
Then the stupidity vanishes and I’m dropped back into the hellish pit of reality.
Everything inside me shuts down.
Head… heart… soul…
I know this man. The one who strolls around the limp body on the floor with threatening grace and menacing confidence. The same guy who had those ring-covered fingers up my skirt six months ago. Who made my ovaries flutter. Who made my knees weak for reasons other than terror.
“Hey, Ollie.” He continues toward me, giving a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to kindly ask you not to scream.”