“Bless you,” Holden said when Eileen sneezed.
As she washed Lydia from tip to toe, Eileen’s teeth left four sharp indentations in her lower lip that would linger for days. Her eyes actively skipped over the sewn up gash on Lydia’s neck and the coarse black thread that pinched the pink flesh beneath the Y-shaped cut on her torso. Eileen squeezed a blob of shampoo into her palm and asked Holden, “Why did they cut her hair?”
“Hmm?” he replied absently as he scribbled notes in a folder. “Oh, they take samples of hair and blood for tests.”
Eileen touched her gloved fingertip to a small bald patch at the base of Lydia’s scalp. Something about that patch, no bigger than a knob of butter, rattled Eileen. Without it, Lydia’s Afro was incomplete, reducing the young woman to nothing more than a pile of evidence for a police investigation.
“Who does the make-up?”
“Clifford mostly. He’s artsier than I am.”
“Can I do it?” The words came out of Eileen’s mouth before she could stop herself. Her desire to give up on this job had been replaced with an emotion she couldn’t express. One man had robbed this young girl of her life. Another had left her with scars. A woman should be the one to make her beautiful one last time.
Holden’s hand hovered over the folder as he studied her for a long moment. “Are you sure?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
He nodded once and went back to his notes, surreptitiously watching Eileen as she gritted her teeth and finished her task. By the time the soap bubbles ran down the drain, Eileen exhaled and smiled, proud of herself for having made it through the ordeal.
“Excellent job,” Holden said as he inspected her work. “Next, we embalm.”
In minutes, Eileen’s pride turned to an entirely different feeling while she held a washcloth doused in peppermint oil beneath her nose, afraid to move it lest the smells overwhelmed her. Perhaps she had been too flippant when she had brushed off Holden’s concern about her not being able to stomach the job, but she’d been desperate. With rent and bills to pay, she couldn’t afford to be picky. The fact that Holden hadn’t delved too deeply into her background was also advantageous. Now, as Holden prepared the remains of Lydia James, Eileen questioned every aspect of her life, wondering how she’d ended up inside an ice-cold room at 5 p.m. with a man whose sole intention was pumping the blood out of a body and filling it with chemicals.
Eileen’s stomach churned. She was glad that she hadn’t eaten lunch; the digested remnants would have made an appearance right there and then. She claimed she had to go to the bathroom, blaming it on the large glass of lemonade she’d had earlier as she rushed out. Holden said nothing, but the smile that tugged at his lips let Eileen know the jig was up. She scrambled up the corridor toward the lavatory, her stomach spasming until she lunged inside and splashed tap water on her face. Trembling, she sank down on the closed toilet with her head in her hands.
Cold seeped under the door, wrapping itself around Eileen’s exposed ankles and snaking up her body until she shivered. Shame ate away at her as she considered her options. She had been ready to quit until she decided she wanted to help Lydia. On the surface, there wasn’t much that separated her from Lydia; she could see herself in the young woman’s smooth face, her bitten nails and the inoculation scar on her left arm. Plus, that smirk on Holden’s face was infuriating. Eileen sighed. Not only was she was stubborn, but she also hated being wrong, two qualities that had gotten her in trouble many times before. She had to see it through, but there was no way she could do so locked inside a bathroom. She took a deep breath, stood up and left the bathroom.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for you,” Holden said as soon as she returned. He rested a syringe on the table and looked up at her as he cocked his head to one side and said, “I’m not the easiest person to work for and this certainly isn’t the most pleasant job in the world, but you haven’t complained once.”
Eileen hadn’t expected that. She supposed it was as close to a compliment as she would get from Holden. Her heart swelled. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, at a quaint whitewashed church not too far from where she’d been born, Lydia was laid to rest. Her parents rubbed her twin brother’s back as he slumped down in the pew after vomiting just outside the door. Eileen was sitting in the hearse and had seen when he dashed outside. Luke didn’t resemble his sister much. He took after his father and Eileen imagined that Lydia looked like her mother did when she was seventeen. She had watched as his body heaved and shuddered, trying to rid itself of grief, but only managing to expel air and acid. As Luke went back inside the church, Holden strode out to the car, sat in the driver’s seat and balanced the programme on his lap. “Not coming in?”
Eileen glanced at Holden’s programme. On the front was a smiling photo of Lydia, her life story told in the tiny dash between the two dates beneath her name.
Eileen shook her head. “It's too sad. Not sure I can handle it.”
His eyes betrayed wisdom beyond his years as he said, “Some funerals are like that. But some are joyful. I buried an old lady last month who lived to a hundred and I couldn’t help but feel grateful to be around the good energy in that church. Everyone was glad to have known her, glad that she had
