Becoming Death

Copyright © 2015 Melissa Brown

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents depicted in this collection are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

Cover photo- Little Black Riding Hood by Rene de Ruijter

Typography Cover Design by The Scarlett Rugers Design Agency
www.scarlettrugers.com

Author photo by Stuart Hellingsworth

Chapter art by Devin Collier

Edited by Playle-Editorial-Services
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For my grandmother, Aceleta Nichols, who taught me to read and write.

Linda Woodward died of hypothermia in a walk-in freezer and it was all my fault. She’d still be alive today if I’d remembered to tell her the freezer had malfunctioned during my shift, or if I’d encouraged her to skip one of her covert cigarette breaks that disobeyed the Burger Hut’s no smoking policy. I tried to remember how she’d been when she was alive, but I couldn’t forget how she’d looked when I found her. Linda had been hunched over a box of frozen burgers with her arms crossed over her chest and a cigarette butt still stuck between her lips. Her skin was as gray as her hair, and her eyes were fixed in a blank stare. Gone were the pranks we'd played on the fry cook, our shared love of comic books and our late night ratings of Hollywood hunks. There was only death. She’d been right all along: lung cancer wouldn’t kill her.

Linda was the third person I’d seen die. I was starting to get used to it. My stomach lurched as I stood in front of the wooden casket containing the body of my former boss. This was goodbye. I shuffled forwards, my fingers clawing at the cigarette pack as I tried to lay it on the mahogany casket. My eyes burned from lack of sleep and I struggled to keep my focus. My hand hovered above the wood for a few seconds before curling into a ball around the pack and retreating to my side.

“Can you give this to her?” I asked the priest, handing him her last pack of Morleys.

He stared at the object with confusion. “They were her favorite,” I assured him.

I drew my limbs close to my body as I walked heavy-footed back to my seat. I leaned my elbow on the back of the church pew and balanced my chin in my hand. A blonde woman stood in front of the casket with a rose. She looked like a ’50s Hollywood starlet with her pinned-back hair and her deep-red lipstick. She belonged at an audition, not a funeral. Everything about her was perfect but the expression across her face; it reminded me of a look I knew too well, that deep sadness that my mother still wore after ten years.

I hated funerals but there I was, back in the place I’d vowed never to return to after being forced by guilt (i.e. my mother) to attend my third funeral at the age of eighteen.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to give Linda a proper goodbye, but the whole idea of a funeral seemed odd to me. A celebration of someone’s death— why did society insist on something so morbid? Think about it, people dressing in black, crying their eyes out if they liked you, or sharing your deepest secrets as gossip if they didn’t. Seriously. Weird.

“It isn’t fair!” shouted the starlet. She stood at the podium next to the casket with her arms raised. “My sister was a wonderful person. She touched so many people’s lives. Now she’s gone. Forever!”

My eyes darted between the oversized picture of a smirking Linda next to the coffin and the much younger woman giving the speech. Sister? More like daughter, but even that connection seemed a bit of stretch. Linda with her short curly hair and plump stature seemed alien next to this leggy blonde with hair straight out of a shampoo commercial.

“My sister,” the blonde whimpered against the back of her hand, a pained expression in her eyes. She paused before digging into her cleavage to pull out a handkerchief like it was part of a magic act. She folded the cloth and dabbed the corners of her eyes. “Linda packed so much into her short time, including achieving her life’s dream of becoming a Burger Hut franchise owner. Owning her own business was what she always wanted, so I’m glad she was able to tick that off her bucket list.”

My mouth hung open. Seriously? Linda had despised the Burger Hut. She’d said it smelt like wet dog and was painted the color of day-old puke. She’d told me that when she won the lottery she was out of there for somewhere tropical where she could marry a toy boy a third of her age and learn to water-ski. I stared at the rest of Linda’s family crying in the front pew. Had they even known her?

I pinched at the pantyhose covering my legs, trying to scratch the tingling skin beneath them without creating a run. I felt ridiculous in this outfit but my mother had insisted that I dressed like a grown-up today. She and my older sister had arrived unannounced at six a.m. to drop off appropriate funeral attire for me. Although I hadn’t been living at home for months, I couldn’t be trusted to dress myself. I might have shown up in one of my superhero t-shirts or a tiny dress that showed too much cleavage, like Linda’s sister. Instead, I was trapped in a black sack with long sleeves and no neckline that was identical to the dress I had worn to my father’s funeral.

A whistle came from my bag and I cursed myself for forgetting to turn off my phone.

“Is there a bird in here?” the elderly woman next to me asked, looking towards the ceiling.

I shrugged, grabbing the bag as another whistle sounded. I pulled out my cell phone and muted it before checking the screen.

Aaron: Hope it’s going ok. Here if you need me.

Aaron: Pizza for dinner? My treat… but I choose the toppings. Muhaha. ;-)

I checked that the woman next to me was still distracted, looking for birds in the rafters before I typed:
I hate this place. It hasn’t changed since my dad was here. I still can’t believe Linda’s gone. Can I get a hug when I get back? Btw you better get pineapple or I’ll kick your shins.

The elderly woman cleared her throat and folded her arms.

“Sorry,” I said, throwing my phone back into the bag and dropping it on the floor.

I raised my eyes back to the blonde woman who was still talking at the front.

“My sister and I were close. I could feel it when she died, like a piece of me had disappeared. If only I could have been there to say goodbye.”

I wondered if she’d be upset to know that Linda’s last words were, “You’re in charge, kid. I’m going to the freezer for a smoke.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep on living without my family,” the woman said, her bottom lip shaking.

My eyes began to water. Her words hit home. I looked away from the woman and tried to focus on my surroundings; the wooden floors and tacky green wallpaper hadn’t changed since I had been sat in this room ten years ago. I rubbed my eyes with my fist. I shouldn’t have come. Sure, I was an adult now, but I still felt like the small girl that had sat in these pews years ago wishing she could speak to her daddy one last time.

Suddenly, the woman screamed, throwing herself on top of the coffin in hysterics. A couple of guests at the front tried to coax her off the casket, but she held on tight and kicked her high heels at them. The scene was straight off a bad soap opera. For a moment I half expected Linda to sit up in the coffin declaring she wasn’t dead, but had only been in a coma.

“No!” Her sister shrieked as other guests begged her to take her seat. She sobbed against the dark wood, pounding it with her fist. “I’m so sorry, sis. I know it couldn’t have been an accident. I’ll find whoever was responsible for your death.”

My eyes widened and I looked around the room. The audience seemed shocked, and some of the members of Linda’s family went to the coffin to comfort the woman. I stood up slowly and made determined strides towards the exit.

I stopped to give Linda’s coffin one last look and whispered, “I hope you got your toy boy.”

I allowed myself a few tears on the journey across Juniper Bay but stopped myself as I parked my wheezing purple Beetle in the driveway of my childhood home. My mother’s home was a two-story colonial style house in the middle of suburbia. The outside was pristine white; the only thing that set it apart was the Tardis-blue front door my father had insisted on when they moved in. Two skinny cherry trees and a spattering of pink flowers had appeared in the front yard since I had been here last, and I wondered how my mother had convinced the homeowner’s society to allow them.

I reached for the envelope on my dashboard and peeled back the seal so I could read the text again. My eyes were drawn to the phrase “fired due to lack of attendance.” Even with the hygiene concerns, the Burger Hut regional manager had been less than pleased when I had refused to finish my shift after finding Linda’s dead body. She was more concerned about the Red Ribby burgers I had burnt during the ordeal than my dead co-worker. Now I couldn’t seem to force myself back through the doors. Not only had Linda been a friend, but the whole incident brought back unpleasant memories of my father’s death. It had been a decade since it had happened, but I could remember the screeching tires of the black pick-up truck as it plowed into our car. He hadn’t made a sound when he died, or at least I hadn’t heard him over my own screams. I think my mom still blamed me. She was always more distant after that day. After all, I was the reason he was driving, to pick up my reward ice cream for winning my soccer game. I don’t eat ice cream anymore. It doesn’t taste the same without him to share it with.

My fingers shook as I wiped my eyes with a discarded Burger Hut napkin and attempted to fix my smudged mascara in the rear view mirror. I half-heartedly ran a brush a couple of times through my hair before giving up and letting the strands hang haphazardly over my eyes. Sometimes it seemed I had my mother’s fiery locks, and other times the color could be mistaken for my late father’s drab brown. Red had won today.

My legs were still itching like crazy under the dreaded pantyhose as I walked up the path. I wanted to rip them off and burn them for good measure but I sucked it up. I needed my mother on-side and dressing the way she wanted could only help. No job meant no money. With rent and bills to pay, it was time for my second grovel of the year. Being an adult sucked.

I stared down at the welcome mat, chiding myself for being the bad daughter. Why didn’t Clarissa ever have to go through this charade? The thought of going to the Burger Hut and begging for my job back crossed my mind, but everything there was tarnished by death. I’d prefer my mother’s disappointed stare to the memory of Linda’s blank one.

My mother opened the door straight away. She had probably been tidying the entranceway. She greeted me with a smile meant for strangers, but when she saw me her lips lowered and she fumbled with the pearls around her neck. “Madison, sweetheart, is everything alright? How was the funeral?”

I looked down at the wooden porch, already feeling ashamed of my predicament. “It was fine, I guess. I feel bad for Linda. Her family didn’t really seem to know her very well.”

“That’s unfortunate,” my mother said, picking a piece of lint off her seafoam-green cardigan.

“Anyway, Mom, could I stay for lunch? I need to talk to you about something.”

My mother’s smile returned. She opened the door fully and gestured for me to come inside. “I always have time for one of my girls.”