Page 62 of Not a Word

Once Mom got over being pissed with me for asking who the man she’d been talking to in the parking lot was, she agreed to let me help her with something.

She’d heard from Detective McCabe that the autopsy on Dad had been completed, and his remains picked up by Heffernan & Sons Funeral Home. I’d called them on Mom’s behalf, and they invited us to come over within the hour.

Heffernan’s was Yorkton Hill’s oldest funeral home, coming up on its hundredth anniversary. A family business, it had started out as Heffernan’s Undertakers, and as the years went on, Undertakers was replaced with Funeral Home and the Sons were added. I wondered what it was like to be in that family, to feel that weight of expectation on you, to know that every day you would be dealing with grieving families and dead bodies and embalming fluid. But hey, as Daffy Duck used to say, It’s a living.

Grant Heffernan, slim, good-looking, early thirties, in a black suit, white shirt, and, jarringly, a fuchsia tie, met us at the door. He led us to a small conference room with a long wooden table and heavy chairs with burgundy cushions. Mom was suitably somber through the paperwork, filling out various forms, signing her name where Grant indicated. He would have known the details of my father’s death, and while discreet enough not to mention them, there was the issue of a closed casket. Despite their reputation for making their subjects presentable, even Heffernan’s might struggle with my father.

Mom opted for no casket. Cremation.

“And I don’t want a big service,” Mom said. “Immediate family only . . . if they choose to come.”

Making me wonder whether Mom was considering her own attendance.

Grant asked if we wanted to bring in some clothes for the deceased.

“Uh,” I said delicately, “if there’s no open casket, and my father is cremated, what is the point of . . .”

“I understand. Your father could be in simple robe or nothing at—”

“He’ll wear a suit,” Mom said. “Anything less is undignified.”

“Of course,” Grant said.

“The thing is,” I said, “the suit would be in the closet of the room where—”

“After we’re done here,” Mom said, “we’ll go to the house and get the clothes.”

If that wasn’t enough of a surprise, she added, “I want to see him.”

Gently, Grant said, “Totally within your rights, Mrs. Chartwell. But I would caution you that—”

Her jaw was firmly set. “You are correct, it is my right, and I choose to exercise it.”

Grant nodded. “Give me a few minutes.”

He was back in fifteen and led us one floor down to a small, carpeted, and darkly wallpapered room. A body lay on a table before us, covered in a dark sheet from head to toe.

“Keep in mind that we have only just received the remains,” he said, standing by the head, his fingers on the corner of the sheet. Mom’s nod of understanding was also an instruction to proceed.

I didn’t want to look. I would not have asked to come down here. But I felt that if Mom was going to do it, I had to as well.

Grant drew back the sheet, exposing my father down to his shoulders. I heard a sharp intake of breath from Mom. I could only look for a second. The room started to spin. Mom lasted four seconds longer than I did, then turned away. Grant dropped the sheet back into place.

“Thank you,” Mom said.

I slipped an arm around her, felt her trembling, and led her out of the room into a hallway. Grant invited us to rejoin him upstairs when we were ready.

My stoic, resilient, rebuffer of condolences mother buried her face in my chest and began to sob.

“Oh god,” she muttered into me. “Oh god oh god.”

I wrapped my arms around her, not knowing what to say. I didn’t think there was anything I could say.

Her lips pressed to my sport jacket, she said four garbled words that, as best as I could tell, were, “What have I done?”

Considering what had happened at the house only a day earlier, it felt stunningly ordinary. No police cars, no yellow tape around the property’s perimeter. We parked in the driveway and got out. I had my own key out before Mom had hers, so I opened the front door. I thought it best if I went in first, in case there was some surprise awaiting us. I couldn’t imagine what it would be—more bodies?—but everything looked normal.

She followed me inside and went straight to the kitchen.