by Amy Cross
"Are you okay?" my father whispers, reaching over and squeezing my hand.
I nod, preferring not to say anything. We're in the front row and there are more than a hundred people sitting behind us; I really don't want any of them to hear me speak right now.
"Let me know if you start feeling emotional," my father continues. "It's okay if you get upset, but you need to tell me, okay? I can take you outside for a few minutes if necessary, so that no-one sees you cry".
I nod again.
"Do you want me to take you outside now?" he asks.
I shake my head.
"Good girl," he says, patting me on the shoulder. "Very good girl".
"Amanda's friends knew her as an intelligent and compassionate woman who never failed to give her all to any endeavor. For this spirit of enthusiasm and dedication, she was known for her role as the heart of so many community events". Once again, he glances at me and I stare back at him. It's fun to see how easily I'm able to freak him out; all I have to do is fix him with a determined glare.
Turning to look at the coffin, I still can't help thinking about my mother's body. She's completely still and lifeless in there, just a collection of meat and bones waiting to be chewed up by worms. All I can think about is the fact that I want to watch as she decomposes, but I know that other people would think I was being strange. I want to sit next to her and just stare at her face as it falls apart. I know it would probably take a long time for the process to be complete, but I don't mind. I just want to watch as she becomes less and less like my mother, even as I stare at her. Finally, I'd be able to see her cross the point where she'd completely stop being my mother at all; she'd just be a mass of petrified, dried-out flesh. Then, and only then, would I be happy to turn away.
"She was a woman who lived her life to the fullest," the priest says. "She brought excitement and joy to those around her".
Suddenly I realize what I'm going to do. The idea just hits me in a flash: I'm going to let them bury her, and then I'm going to sneak out of the house tonight and come back with a shovel. I'll dig her up, open the coffin lid and watch her body as it decomposes. If necessary, I'll hide her somewhere, and then I'll come back night after night and keep watch. I know my father would think it was a little strange to do something like that, so I'll be careful to make sure he doesn't ever find out that I'm here. Hopefully, I can document the entire process as she rots down to nothing. I'm quite certain all her skin and meat will go fairly quickly; the bones, I'm not so sure of, but I can probably compromise and end the project once the bones are all that's left. It's in this way that I'll finally be able to understand exactly how death works. I want to remove the mystery and know precisely what happens to a body after the person has died; I want to know what it'll be like for me when, one day in the far future, I too break down and die. So many people are scared of death, but I want to look it right in the face and know what it's like.
"Amanda was also known for her love of animals," the priest continues. "She worked as a volunteer at a local animal hospital, and she was often seen out walking the family dog Jasper. Just like Amanda, Jasper was a rescue dog".
At that point, I start laughing. I know the priest meant well, but the way he phrased that last sentence, he made it sound as if my mother was rescued from some kind of dog sanctuary. Lowering my head so that no-one can see me laughing, I suddenly feel a hand touch my shoulder from behind, and I realize that someone in the next row has mistaken my laughter for tears. I take a deep breath, determined to recover from this embarrassing moment, and eventually I'm able to look up again, watching and listening as the priest continues to talk. For someone who never actually met my mother when she was alive, he sure seems to be good at telling everyone else about her. Still, all I can think about is her body in the coffin, and questions are tumbling through my mind: are her nails still growing? What about her hair? What did the morticians do to her before they put her in the coffin? Is there any chance that she could wake up?
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 people slowly start filing out, and a procession of well-wishers approaches my father, telling him how beautiful they thought the service had been. 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, but instead they just plow through a list of platitudes.
"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. Then again, my mother was probably no better than any of these people; when she went to a funeral, she probably just said and did all the right, polite things. Even when she was dying in hospital, being filled with drugs and blasted with radiation, she just lay back and accepted it all, never questioning what was happening to her or wondering whether the right decisions were being made. I can't help wondering if my mother ever made an interesting or original choice in her life, or if she went through her entire existence on rails.
"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 wondering whether she wasted her life. I still love her, I think, but I'm confused as to how she could just let herself die so easily and without any real anger. It's as if she just got into that hospital bed a year ago, and waited patiently for the end, enduring all the pain and torture of her treatment without once raising her voice. 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 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.
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, and they probably just write it off as a consequence of my mother's recent death. 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, and force them to break out of their little lives.
"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," 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".
"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? "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. I know all the people gathered here probably think I'm brave but a little strange, and I'd hate to prove them right. Still, I have to find some way to get back at my father for what he's done. 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, I'll have to be smart and I'll have to wait a while until I can come up with a good plan. He will pay for this, though. I don't know how, not yet, but I'll make him wish he'd never done this to my mother's body.
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? She sure isn't the cheeriest assignment".
"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 shoves 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 I can't help wondering about ghosts and stuff like that". 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 ask 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. "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 littl
e longer dealing with each problem that comes up. I just don't want to become totally cynical, not 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. Fundamentally, Ruth Brown is an old woman who's on the verge of death, and her mind has probably long since deteriorated to the point where any kind of human contact is impossible. Lizzie's probably right, even if I don't quite want to admit it just yet.
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.
