Mortuary Confidential

Wes did all he could for him over the four years, but at the time our knowledge of HIV wasn’t what it is now, and Charles withered and died.

On the day of his death, Wes’s care stopped and mine started.

I fulfilled Charles’s wish and cremated his earthly remains. I also dropped the letter to his aunt in the mail.

Two weeks passed. I finally found it within me to take one of the empty glass wine bottles and the corker to the funeral home. Human cremains can range in color from white to gray to even a pinkish color. Charles’s were gray. I ran a magnet over the cremains to pick up any metal fragments and then ran them through the processor that crushes any big bone chips and turns them into the type of “ashes” the general public would be familiar with, fireplace-looking ashes.

I put the bottle under the funnel of the transfer machine and poured the ash from the transfer can until the wine bottle was full, setting aside the small amount left over for myself. I was going to scatter them next time I was in Napa, Charles’s favorite wine region. I corked the green glass bottle and set it on a shelf in my office.

Charles sat on my shelf for at least another week while Jacques summoned the courage to come pick up his former partner. It was during this time that I was sitting at the reception desk in the lobby, breaking the receptionist for lunch, when a pleasant-looking elderly woman walked in. The woman, who was quite plump, was dressed neatly in a light pink, old-lady-type pantsuit. She strolled up to the reception desk.

“Hello,” she said in a Southern drawl.

I curiously stared at her big hair, but only for a moment. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Constance de Baptiste.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Okay.”

“I’m here to take my Charles back to the family plot in L’isiana.”

I paused, stunned, and my heart stopped beating as Jacques walked in the front door behind her, but I recovered enough to say to Charles’s mother, “Okay, ma’am. Why don’t you take a seat over there and I can help you in five minutes. A gentleman who has an appointment to pick something up has just arrived. It shouldn’t take long.”

“That will be just fine, young man,” she said.

Charles’s words echoed through my head, Curt, under no circumstances are you to give them to her, as Jacques walked up to the counter, and for a moment Mrs. de Baptiste and her son’s lover were side by side, though neither knew it. Charles didn’t keep any pictures of his family around, so Jacques couldn’t know what she looked like, and Mrs. de Baptiste had no idea what her son’s lover of almost twenty-two years looked like. They glanced at each other the way strangers do, then Mrs. de Baptiste walked across the lobby and plunked all of herself down in one of our couches and opened a magazine.

I held my hand in such a way that my pointing finger was shielded from Mrs. de Baptiste as I pointed to her and mouthed Charles’s mother. Jacques’s eyes got real wide and his mouth dropped open in an “Oh, my gosh” expression.

“Could I get you something to drink while you wait, ma’am?” I called over Jacques’ shoulder.

“Dear no,” she replied. “I won’t even be that long. But thank you.”

She went back to her magazine and I hunched over the counter so Jacques and I could talk in conspiratorial tones.

“That’s really her?” he asked. “No joke?”

“Seriously. It’s Charles’s mom.”

“I expected some hillbilly with no teeth wearing overalls!” Jacques exclaimed.

“Shhh! She’ll hear you, but yes, she is quite unlike what I pictured. And she speaks like she’s very well educated.”

“I never would have thought it,” Jacques said, shaking his head. “Charles always made them sound like they were backwoods type people.”

“Just backwards thinking people,” I said.

Jaques repeated, “I never would have thought it.”

“Me neither,” I said, putting my hand on top of his in a friendly way. “That aside. How are you doing?”

“Hanging in there… I guess. I miss him a lot, especially at night when I’m alone. He was such a large presence. There’s nothing now.”

“Wes and I are here for you. You know that.”

“I know.”

“Let me go get him. I’ve got him all bottled up for you.” I disappeared into the back and returned with the bottle, which I handed to Jacques with great fanfare, and said loudly enough that Mrs. de Baptiste could hear, “Here’s a bottle of the finest. The finest I’ve ever known for sure.”

“Thank you, Curt,” he said with tears in his eyes that he quickly dashed.

“Bye,” I said quietly.

“Now ma’am,” I called to Mrs. de Baptiste. “What did you say I could do for you? I got sidetracked with that gentleman who came to pick up a wine bottle.”

Mrs. de Baptiste got up, and as she did, her estranged son came within mere feet of her as Jacques passed her on his way out the door. She looked curiously at the bottle cradled in the man’s arms; its contents hidden by opaque green glass.

She trundled over to the counter. “A bottle of wine?” Her Southern drawl made her sound as though she was talking with a mouth full of syrup.

“Yes. A little unusual, but I make wine in my spare time, and sometimes my patrons will ask for a bottle.”

“Isn’t that marvelous,” she said as if she wasn’t sure if it was or not. “But I have no time to be drinking wine at a funeral parlor.” Parlor sounded like par-luh. “I have come for my Charles and then I have a flight to catch back to L’isiana.”

“Your Charles? I’m sorry, ma’am, but his cremains are no longer here,” I said truthfully. The door closed behind Jacques. “His partner came to pick him up already. That’s what Charles wanted; I have a signed affidavit allowing me to release his cremains to his partner if you would like to see that document.”

The Southern belle facade cracked.

She spluttered. She threatened. She menaced.

I stood staunch and collected.

In the end, she flew back to Louisiana without her dear Charles, but what matters is that Charles is where he should be, where he wanted to be.

CHAPTER 47 The First Date Contributed by a writer

My parents had been away on vacation to the Cajun capital—New Orleans—and I was meeting them to eat when their flight landed. It was summertime, and, as usual, thunderstorms had delayed their flight. I was already at the restaurant when they called me from the tarmac. It was a nice night so I got myself a drink from the bar and decided to wait outside. I ran into an old friend and his girlfriend outside. We reminisced for a few minutes before they went in to eat, and I gave him my phone number. We’d catch up, I told him.

I ordered another drink, my parents arrived soon, and I promptly forgot about the encounter.

A couple of weeks later I was at my parents’ beach house and received a call from the old friend. His girlfriend’s parents had rented a house the next town over, and would I be interested in going out to the bar? Would I? Does the Pontiff live in Rome? Of course I would! I spent the night out at the bar with him, his girlfriend, her sister, and a couple of other people. We had a great time. The next morning I had a raging headache, but I had the sister’s phone number and thus ended my weekend at the beach.

That Monday began my week on call—the week when I had to take night calls and go out on death removals. I generally don’t like to get involved in things I can’t be readily torn away from when I’m on call, but I didn’t want to