Not Another One Hit Wonder

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Riley isn’t my daughter; she’s my niece.

Growing up, it was often just my younger sister Lisa and me, left to our own devices, while our parents were at work. They ran the funeral parlor together—Eckert’s has always been a family business—my father owner and manager, the big boss, and my mother his girl Friday. Hers was the voice people heard when they called to make arrangements for a loved one or to seek assistance in planning their own funeral. After school, Lisa and I were relegated to the basement and told to play quietly, which meant we could watch the television in the staff break room as long as no one heard us.

Some other kids our age thought we were brave because we’d seen dead bodies before, but a few—girls, mostly, and Lisa had to deal with them, not me—a few thought we were scary or gross. As if we spent our time hanging out with them in the cooler, or something. I get that death freaks most people out, but I’ve never quite understood why. Dead is dead. Over and done with, the person you used to know is gone. The soul has moved on, to wherever it is we go when we die. All that’s left behind is a shell, something discarded, like a change of clothes you no longer need. It’s nothing to be frightened of, unless the body is in an advanced state of decomposition, and then I’m more afraid of germs than whether or not it’ll come to life again.

It won’t. Dead is dead. Though we live in Virginia, which is far enough south that people don’t die here, they pass away.

When I was twelve and Lisa ten, our mother passed away after succumbing to an aggressive form of ovarian cancer her doctor found too late. By then I was old enough to be put to work; I didn’t rush to the funeral parlor after school just to sit in front of the TV anymore. My father had me filing paperwork, unloading caskets, and even going on removals with him when no one else was available. He never asked me if I wanted to follow in his footsteps and take over the business one day—it was always understood that I would, regardless of my feelings on the matter.

Molly Hunter was hired to fill my mother’s position. Though she hadn’t worked in a funeral parlor before, she wasn’t squeamish about it in the least. She’d already lost one husband—that’s another euphemism for death we use around here, lost, as if he just wandered off one day and hadn’t come home yet—and knew first-hand the rising costs of funeral expenses, particularly when the deceased had no life insurance.

Like Meryl Hunter, apparently. Molly’s only question when my father interviewed her for the position was, “Do I get an employee discount?”

* * * *

It turned out Lisa and I both went into the family business. My father had me tapped as his successor, but Lisa channeled her girlish love of makeup into a career in embalming.

She used to say guys always seemed interested in her until they found out what she did for a living, then they cleared out. True or not, she eventually settled down with Michael, who worked at the funeral parlor, too. I guess he couldn’t get too grossed out by what she did when he was in more or less the same field. Riley was born about a year and a half after they married.

Because of the way our mother died, Lisa was stringent about keeping up with her yearly exams. She didn’t want to die from the same cancer, especially since it was hereditary. In the end, though, it wasn’t cancer that killed her.

For their third anniversary, Michael took Lisa up to Richmond for an evening out on the town. I wasn’t on call that night and agreed to watch Riley so they could spend a little “adult time” together. The plan was dinner at a posh seafood restaurant on the James River followed by a show downtown. I think they saw Wicked, which had just come to the area and somehow Michael had managed to get really good seats. When he told Lisa about them, she couldn’t stop grinning for days.

The show turned out to be just as magical as she hoped. Shortly before eleven that evening, I got a call from Lisa as she and Michael sat in their car, waiting for the traffic to thin out enough so they could exit the parking deck. She sounded breathless with wonder—I can close my eyes and still hear her laugh through the line. She asked after Riley, who was already down for the night, and told me they hoped to be home by midnight. “If we ever get out of here!” she joked. “Love you, Jay. Tell Riley I love her, too.”

“She’s sleeping,” I reminded Lisa. “Drive careful.”

“Hmm. Mike, go, go! He’s waving you on.” Then, remembering she still had me on the line, she said, “Leaving now. See you soon!”

Only they never made it home alive.