Nocte (The Nocte Trilogy #1)(3)
Author: Courtney Cole

God, Calla. Why does every freaking thing have to come back to that?

I grit my teeth and force my stubborn mind to think of other things, but that’s hard in a funeral home.  Especially as I may my way out of the private part of the house and into the public areas. 

All I can do is keep my eyes pointed forward.

Because even though no one is here yet today, there are two Viewing Rooms straddling this hall.  There’s a body in each one, laid out in their finest for all of their acquaintances to stare at. 

They’re dead, of course, with spiked plastic disks inside their eyelids holding them closed and thick pancake makeup smeared on their faces to give them some semblance of living color.  It’s a major fail, by the way.

Dead people don’t look like they’re sleeping, as everyone likes to say.  They look dead, because they are.  Poor things. I refuse to gawk at them. Death strips a person of dignity, but I don’t have to be the one holding the filet knife. 

Twelve steps later, I’m out the door and taking a deep breath, replacing the potent funeral home smells with the fresh air of the outdoors.  Two steps later and I’m strolling across the dewy grass.  My father and Finn both look up, then stop what they’re doing when they see that I’m awake. 

“Good morning, men!” I call out with faux cheerfulness.  Because something my mother taught me was fake it ‘til you make it.  If you don’t feel good, pretend you do because eventually you will. It hasn’t worked yet, but I’m still holding out hope.

Finn smiles, causing the one dimple in his left cheek to deepen.  I know he’s faking it too, because none of us really feel like smiling these days.

“Morning, slacker.”

I grin (fake). “It’s a rough life sleeping until ten, but someone’s got to do it.  Do you guys want me to run in to the café and get some coffee?”

My father shakes his head.  “Those of us who got up at a normal hour are already caffeinated.”

I roll my eyes.  “Well, do you want me to take Finn to Group, to make up for my laziness?”

He shakes his head and smiles, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Because it’s also fake.  Just like mine.  Just like Finn’s.  Because we’re all fakers.

“Actually,” he eyes me, sizing up me and my mood.  “That’d be great. I’ve got someone coming in today, so I’ll be tied up.”

By someone, he means a body to embalm, and by today, he must mean soon because he’s already standing up and wiping off his hands. 

I nod quickly, willing to do anything to get out of here.

Years of watching bodies come and go wears on a person.  I’ve seen it all… accident victims, elderly people, still-births, kids. The kids are the hardest, but eventually, it’s all hard. Death isn’t something that anyone wants to think about, and no one wants to be surrounded by it all of the time.

My father might’ve chosen his profession, but I certainly didn’t.

Which is why I’d rather take Finn to his therapy any day.

It’s something my mother used to do, because she always insisted that it was better for Finn if someone was there, in case he wanted to ‘talk’ on the way home.  He never does, and so I think she just wanted to make sure that he went.  Either way, we keep up her tradition.

Because traditions are soothing when everything else has gone to hell. 

“Sure.  I can go.”  I glance at Finn.  “But I’m driving.”

Finn smiles at me angelically.  “I called it when you were still in bed.  It’s the price of being a slacker.  Sorry.”

His grin decidedly says Not Sorry.  And this time, it isn’t fake.

“Whatever.  Do you want a shower?”

He shakes his head again.  “I’ll just run in and change.  Give me a minute.”

He trots off, and I watch him go, observing for the fiftieth time, how much he looks like our father.  Same height, same build, some coloring.  Our father looks more like his twin than I do.

Dad watches him walk away, then glances at me.

“Thanks, sweetie.  How are you doing today?”

He’s not asking how I’m doing, so much as how I’m feeling.  I know that, and I shrug.

“Ok, I guess.”

Except for the freaking lump that won’t go away in my throat.  Except for the fact that whenever I look in the mirror, I see my mom so I have to fight off the urge to rip them all from the walls and throw them over the cliffs.  Except for those things, I’m fine.

I look at my dad.  “Maybe we should become Jewish so that we can sit in Shiva and not have to worry about anything else.”

My dad look stunned for a minute, then smiles slightly. “Well, Shiva only lasts a week.  So that wouldn’t do us much good at this point.”

Nothing will do us much good at this point. But I don’t say that.

“Well, I guess I won’t cover up the mirrors then.”  Unfortunately.

My father smiles now, and I think it might actually be a little bit real.  “Yeah. And you’ll have to keep showering too.”  He pauses.  “You know, there’s a grief support group that meets at the hospital too. You could poke your head in while you wait for Finn.”

I’m already shaking my head.  Screw that. He’s got to give up trying to make me go to one of those.  The only thing worse than drowning in grief is sharing a lifeboat with other drowning people.  Besides, if anyone needs a grief group, it’s him.

“I think I’ll pass,” I tell him for the hundredth time.  “But if I change my mind, I’ll look it up.”

“Ok,” he gives in easily, like he always does.  “I understand that, I guess.  I don’t want to talk about it, either.  But maybe one of these days….”

His voice trails off and I know that he’s filing this under the One Of These Days folder in his head, along with a million other things.  Things like cleaning out my mother’s closet, picking her dirty clothes up out of their bathroom, putting away her shoes and her jacket.  Things like that.

It’s been six weeks since my mother died, and my father has left her stuff un-touched, like he’s expecting her to come home at any minute.  He knows this isn’t the case since he embalmed her body and we buried her in her gleaming mahogany casket, but obviously it would be insensitive to point that out.