dirt drive, bouncing like twin fireflies.
#
V
The knock was unnecessary, but Roby knew the action was meant as a sign of respect. Alfred, clean now except for a few stains on his shirt, swung open the screen door and held it as Barnaby entered. The undertaker wore his midnight blue suit, the one he wore when dropping in on a sitting. His black suit, the serious hand-tailored one, was saved for the actual viewing and interment.
Roby nodded at Barnaby. Barnaby smiled in greeting while somehow keeping the undercurrent of sorrow fixed on his face. Roby marveled at the man’s professional talent. Or perhaps it wasn’t a talent. Maybe his face had grown that way, etched by a thousand funerals, the solemn features worn and eroded like a tombstone that had weathered too many storms.
'Hello, Mrs. Ridgehorn,' he said. The widow had risen to her feet and let Barnaby take her hand. 'Hope this isn’t an inconvenient time to discuss the final arrangements.'
'Needs to be done,' the widow said. 'No use pretending he ain’t dead.'
'I’m handling it for Momma,' Marlene said. 'I’ll do all the signing.'
Barnaby, with his hunched back, long neck, and sharp face, had the aspect of a vulture. He hunched even lower in a bow of resigned agreement.
'We don’t want nothing fancy,' Alfred said. 'A regular Baptist funeral, the preacher does his sermon, the choir sings ‘When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder,’ then a straight drive from the chapel to the family cemetery.'
'And no more wreaths,' Marlene said. 'Or memory books. No limousine, just the hearse.'
Barnaby looked to the widow for approval. She pursed her mouth. The casserole had given her lips a slick sheen. 'I reckon Jacob would have wanted the bare bones,' she said.
'As you wish,' the undertaker said.
Roby caught a faint whiff of formaldehyde over the aroma of the food.
Death seeped into a man when he was around it long enough. His breath became the gas of rot and his skin became dust. His eyes became dying lights, dry and gray and empty. He returned to the dirt more slowly than his customers, but the process was just as one-way, with the same end.
'You want some food?' Anna Beth asked him.
'No, thank you. I’ve already eaten.' Barnaby made his way around the counter and shook Alfred’s hand. The veins in the undertaker’s neck throbbed visibly under his thin skin. 'Alfred. Sorry about your loss.'
'Our loss is your gain.'
Roby stiffened, but the undertaker’s colorless smile took the edge off the remark. 'When you stick out your chin that way, you look just like your father,' Barnaby said.
Alfred didn’t know whether to take that as praise or an insult. 'Want some cake? The pie’s all gone but we got devil’s food and bundt. Pick your poison.'
'Thank you, really, but I just stopped by to take care of the details.'
'Come on, Barnaby,' Roby said. 'Make yourself at home.'
Their eyes met.
'Any pie left?' Barnaby asked.
'All gone,' Roby said.
'Must have been good.'
'It was. Beverly Parsons made it.'
Sarah got out a plate and set it before Barnaby. He rubbed his hands together and said, 'Well, since you’re being so hospitable.'
Anna Beth nicked off some of the bundt cake. Barnaby was asking for seconds before Roby could make the offer. Roby wondered how the man stayed so thin, as many sittings as he’d attended over the years. After he’d finished off the second piece, he wiped the crumbs from his chin with a handkerchief he’d pulled from a hidden suit pocket.
'I have the flowers out in the car,' Barnaby said. 'The usual way is for the flowers to stay at the house until the viewing.'
'No more wreaths,' Marlene reminded him.
'Oh, of course there will be no charge. These are gift flowers, sent in loving memory. Jacob was well- respected by the community.'
The widow choked back a sob and rubbed a hand across her eyes. 'Thank you, Mr. Clawson, for your consideration in these trying times.'
'Ma’am, I talked to Jacob a few times in the past year. Even though the Lord took him before any of us expected, he was already laying plans. He didn’t want you to worry over the details.'
'He was a good man.'
'I think relieving a loved one of the burden of afterlife care is the best thing a person can do in this life,' Barnaby said.
Roby wished the man wouldn’t lay it on so thick. It’s not like he needed a sales pitch. He had the product that sold itself.
'Where are the flowers?' Alfred said.
'Out in my car,' the undertaker said. 'In the trunk.'
'Let me get them,' Roby said.
Barnaby fished in his pants pocket and came out with the keys. 'You know the right key.'
Roby nodded.
'Get the porch light,' the widow said to Anna Beth. 'It got dark while we wasn’t looking.'
Anna Beth followed Roby outside. He felt, more than saw, the dark hulk of the barn off the road to the left of the yard. The early stars were like cold holes in the night sky. The autumn breeze played along the tops of the trees, rattling leaves that had gone to red and brown. The stretch of Jacob’s farm was a distant, forgotten corner of a deep and heartless universe.
'You wait here,' Roby said to Anna Beth.
'You might need some help.'
'I done this plenty. Don’t want you falling in the dark and getting your dress dirty.'
That was something she couldn’t argue with. She needed something for the viewing, and had to save her best for the funeral itself. That meant she’d be wearing tonight’s dress tomorrow. 'Be careful.'
Barnaby Clawson’s car was parked twenty yards from the house. He could have driven closer to the door, but distance meant respect. And distance meant safety from prying eyes.
Except from those eyes that could see in the dark, could see through skin, could see right into the heart of things.
Roby inserted the key, popped the trunk, and looked back toward the house. Through the windows, the kitchen was like a lighted stage. Barnaby looked to be helping himself to a third piece of bundt cake. The widow held a mug of warm tea, Alfred and Cindy had an arm around each other’s waist, Sarah was at the sink washing the latest round of dirty dishes, and Buck was talking to Marlene, no doubt about tractors.
He ducked under the trunk lid and rummaged under the bouquets of flowers. The smell of crushed petals was heady and sickening. He hurried in his task, eager to breathe the night air again. The suitcase was over the wheel well. His fingers found its familiar frayed piping, the ragged leather raised from its surface like warts on flesh.
'I’ll be just a second,' he said to Anna Beth, who stood under a swirl of moths that had collected around the porch light. 'Got to get something from my car.'
His palm was sweaty around the handle of the suitcase, his breath shallow, his lungs burning though the air had a September chill. His arm ached, as if the contents were a hundred pounds instead of a few. He reached his truck, opened the door, and slung the suitcase into the passenger’s seat. Roby glanced up to the barn, its black mouth open to the world.
Roby didn’t like that part of the job, the one that was far removed from bright kitchens, clean plates, solemn
