Focus.
Morticians were often viewed as cold, clinical. Creepy. But there was an artfulness to the practice most people didn’t know about. Or didn’t want to know about, rather. She’d been taught by her father to make friends with the deceased. To try and understand who they’d been and where they’d come from. Now that she’d performed the chemical rinse and broken the rigor mortis through a careful massaging of the body, it was time to set her guest’s features, since the casket would be open at his wake.
Humming to herself, Ginny leaned over and consulted the family-provided picture sitting on her instrument table. In it, Kristof had one arm propped on the bow of a boat, his other hand stuffed into a rain slicker. A deluge fell around him unacknowledged. Kristof had been a stoic man, it seemed. There weren’t many smile or laugh lines around his face and eyes, so it wouldn’t do to form his lips into a subtle yet peaceful smile, as she often did. No, they would be sending off a hard-nosed fisherman and furthermore, that would be what Kristof would want those left behind to see. The real him.
Ginny was only beginning to lose herself in the setting of his features when Larissa appeared in the doorway of the morgue, holding a martini glass. “Oh, you’re here. Good. I wasn’t sure if I’d be running this place alone now.”
As inconspicuously as possible, Ginny glanced over her shoulder to see Jonas was nowhere in sight. She hadn’t even heard him move. Turning back to Larissa with genuine contriteness, Ginny stripped off her gloves and laid them down beside Kristof’s head. “I’m sorry about last night. I hope there wasn’t much extra work.”
“No. No, I left it all for you.” She pressed a thumb to the center of her forehead. “I can just about manage my own shifts without taking on yours, too. Who is this friend you were with since last night?”
“Someone from my dress making club,” Ginny said, too quickly and too unconvincingly. Just don’t add any unnecessary information. It’s a classic tell when someone is lying. “She’s a brunette. Bangs. She has bangs…and she loves an A-line.”
Larissa sipped her martini. “Hmm.”
Ginny traced a circle on the metal table with her finger. “The thing is, I might be spending more time with her. We’re working on a project together…for the silent dress auction that’s coming up. Just in case you’re wondering where I am.”
Her stepmother gestured to Kristof with her martini glass. “I suppose I’m going to handle hosting duties for the wake?”
“Yes. If you could just this once. I’ll call the church and book the driver. As soon as I’m finished here, I’m going to send the prayer cards to the printers.”
“Flowers?”
“Arriving tomorrow morning, first thing.”
“Hmm.” She drained her glass. “Then I best get off to bed. I’ve got another depressing day ahead, don’t I?”
“I don’t know,” Ginny murmured. “There’s some happiness to be found in everyone coming together and sharing memories, too, isn’t there? Ensuring those moments don’t die with their loved ones. Reliving times out loud doesn’t have to be encouraged, it’s just a human reaction. It’s beautiful in a way.”
Not a single family member remained on her father’s side. Without her mother’s side to bolster his funeral guest list, there’s been a very sparse turnout. Larissa had family in Florida, but she’d never brought them for a visit, rarely spoke of them and they weren’t in attendance.
Oddly enough, it had turned out to be her father’s barber who saved the day. Sitting to Ginny’s left in the front row, he’d listened to her recount memories of her father, even adding some of his own. Until the day of his funeral, Ginny didn’t know her father used to read celebrity epitaphs aloud in the barber shop and buy coffee for whoever guessed their identities correctly.
It was entirely morbid, exactly like him and the story made her feel peaceful when she didn’t think anything could.
Ginny realized with a jolt that, while she’d been deep in thought, Larissa had paused at the door. “Did you say something?”
She shook her head. “It was nothing. Sleep well.”
“Oh!” Her stepmother jerked her chin toward the lobby. “I forgot to mention that Gordon is here to see you.”
The overhead lights flickered.
She swallowed. “Oh. Could you let him know I’ll be right out?”
Larissa rolled her eyes and vanished from view, leaving the smell of Dior perfume in her wake. Ginny turned and looked for Jonas, expecting him to return now that Larissa was gone, but his chair remained empty.
After lifting the rubber apron over her head, Ginny washed her hands and meandered out to the lobby, which was empty except for a pacing Gordon.
“Hi, Gordon.” Ginny stopped about ten feet away, lacing her fingers together at her lap. “Larissa said you wanted to see me?”