Even In Death

The organ’s music floated through the church’s sanctuary as Emily walked in, and at first, she thought it was a joke. Its sound teetered between solemn and hopeful, like an early morning hymn, but with no one else batting an eye, she blamed her imagination and approached the satin-lined casket.

Henry lay inside on his back in a beige tux, arms crossed at his chest, and his brown hair slicked back with such an obscene coat of product that it parted like prongs of a wide-tooth comb. Only in this moment, Emily thought, it’s good he’s dead. He hated the feeling of hair gel. His lips had lost their warmth, now stained an icy blue, and his skin almost melded with the porcelain satin around him, a paleness he never wore even in the darkest of winters. Despite it all, he seemed so at peace, like his eyes would flutter awake at any second.

A weary smile tugged on the corner of her lips. Even in death, he could fool her.

“You’re late,” someone said sharply. On Emily’s left, a woman—Henry’s mother—pursed her lips together, staring too at his body.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Emily kept her voice soft, suddenly fixating on the barely visible scars drawn across Henry’s face. “The surgeon did amazing.”

“He was paid to. A mother should see her son’s face before she buries him.”

Their conversation halted, the organ still humming. Emily gulped and played with her chipped fingernails. Should she leave? No. That’d be rude. An apology could help if his mother wanted to accept one, though sometimes—most times—it was hard to tell.

“Look,” she said, “I just wanted to say—”

“Hide your smile on your way back,” Henry’s mother retorted before walking away.

Emily huffed. There was no pleasing that woman. She fixed the sleeve of her dress and ambled back to her seat, marked by her stranded purse at the edge of the wooden bench. Next to her was a woman in a black feathered hat and a matching silk dress, a much nicer outfit than Emily’s. Her dress stopped at her knees, revealing her exposed legs and frayed bottom. Its color had faded to a deep gray, and the sleeves were a touch too big around the shoulders, but none of her other black dresses could hide the bruise on her arm; it still hadn’t healed properly, and no one here needed to see it.

A creak of opening doors echoed through the room, ceasing the organ’s song. All attendees rose from their seats. In walked the pastor, a tall, hefty man in a stark white robe, striding through the center aisle. He reached the stage above the casket and stood behind a podium, a photo of Henry’s winning smile sitting on a stand beside him. Lavender plants outlined the photo and trailed a path to the wooden casket, where a cluster of them rested on its closed half, their scent clinging to the air as if masking his true smell. The pastor motioned to the guests to sit, and once they followed, he began the service.

“Welcome, everyone,” he greeted. “I’d like to start by reminding us that we’re gathered here today not just to mourn a loss, but to celebrate a life. Your love for Henry cannot flourish in sorrows, so do not drown in them. Join me in bowing our heads to let the good memories comfort us in his wake.”

Emily dropped her head and shut her eyes. What did she love about Henry? She imagined the moments of his raspy morning voice, hands around her waist, the snippets switching like flipping through different TV channels, but something wasn’t right.

Wasn’t she meant to be crying? Because, despite her memories, nothing came out. Nothing. Her hands rolled into fists. This should be easier.

The pastor continued his monologue, but his voice droned beneath Emily’s increasing awareness of the other sounds around her—the sniffles on her right, the sobs on her left, feet shuffling against the carpet behind her, and the whispers. They were the loudest.

Were people talking about me?

They had to be.

Surely they noticed her lack of tears, her steady walk. Everything about her was so abhorrently insensitive. At any moment, Henry’s mother would march to her and demand that she leave, and rightfully so.

I don’t deserve another chance.

A knot in her throat grew, pulling tighter. She bit her lip to curb what was churning in her stomach and opened her eyes, but after lifting her head, she sucked in a breath.

The room had turned silent. The crowd stood, facing Emily, as still as a broken clock. At first, she thought they were staring at someone behind her, but when she turned her head, a man and a woman hovered over her, glaring straight into her eyes. She sprang from her seat, her hands trembling. When she looked back into the crowd, their arms were now raised and angled as if their bodies had become the letter Y.

Together, they moaned the same low notes over and over again, “I. Loved. You. I. Loved. You.”

Emily’s body numbed. She grabbed onto the bench behind her, tightening her grip. Her nerves stabbed throughout her body, one word clanging in her head.

Escape.

But how? Her feet were too paralyzed to move. Closing her eyes, she shouted at herself in her head.

Go! Just go!

Emily released her grip on the bench, her breathing shallow, and inched through the center aisle, hoping a slow pace would calm the crowd as they murmured the same words on a loop, their gaze tracking her every step, but just as she was about to push through the double doors—

They swung open and crashed into the walls. Emily jumped back, tripping on herself, and fell on her back. When she lifted her head, her eyes began to water, and like a frozen, severed finger, a chill tickled down her spine from who stood before her.

Henry.

His gelled hair remained, but his lips were the pink Emily always knew, and his skin had regained its natural sandy color, like he never left the sun. He looked down at her in his tux, a snarl peeking from his mouth.

“No,” Emily muttered. He was dead; he was supposed to be dead. Had she missed something? Was the funeral just another one of her hallucinations? It had to be. She knew the truth. Henry had repeated it in the coldest of nights.

I’ll always be with you.

She crawled backwards away from Henry as he stormed to her, matching her pace, until the back of her head thudded against something hard. She quickly rose to her feet and gasped. She had bumped into the casket, only now, it was empty. When she tried to run away, Henry hovered over her, frowning, blocking her escape. Her lip quivered. How was this real? Henry was dead. She saw it herself.

“Henry?” Emily whispered. She lifted her hand to cradle Henry’s cheek, but it went through him, like a ghost.

Small groans escaped from his mouth. “You. Did. This.”

She shook her head. “No. I tried to stop you. I know it.”

A cheeky grin grew wide on Henry’s face until his head fell back, parallel to the ceiling. He opened his mouth, the gap widening past normalcy as his jawbone split and collapsed against his chest. Muted screams echoed from his throat.

“This won’t work anymore,” Emily whimpered. “Tell me I’m right.”

With one crack, Henry’s head snapped back with a broken jaw, two empty holes, and scaly, rotten skin. He grabbed her arms and tightened his grip, like a snake coiling around its prey. Emily tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he began shaking her viciously.

“No!” she screamed. “Stop it!”

“Emily!” a woman’s voice yelled.

Emily’s eyes flew open, and she gasped for air. A familiar woman with a burning red ponytail stood before her, holding onto Emily’s arms with her brows furrowed. As her breathing eased, Emily scanned the room. The guests were merely seated, sniffling into their tissues. Henry’s mother, however, still glared at her. Emily glanced at the casket behind her. Henry was inside, stiff and unaware.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked. Detective Amber, that was who she was. Emily remembered her voice from the interrogation. The night Henry died.

Emily stuttered before responding, “I’m sorry.” She brushed past the detective to grab her purse. Her footsteps echoed as she exited the room, fumbling inside her purse for her keys. She stormed down the church’s stairs outside, hurrying to her car parked on the side of the street.

“Emily, stop!”

Emily whirled around to face the detective, fists forming at her sides. Henry’s case was closed, wasn’t it?

“Why are you here?” Emily asked. “You didn’t know him.”

Detective Amber inched closer to her. “The mom invited me to find ‘clues.’ She has trouble believing her son’s death was an accident.”

Emily opened her mouth to rebut, but stopped. Behind the detective’s head, Henry stood on the steps, his jaw cracked and skin still rotting, his head tilted, and his body unmoving. He wasn’t going to let her go.

“Leave me alone!” Emily yelled.

The detective swung her head around. “Are you talking to me?”

“No, him! He’s not dead. He’s here.”

“He? Who’s he—”

“Henry!” Emily shouted, her voice cracking. After one long grunt, she buried her face in her hands. What did he want? She had nothing left to give him…except for one thing.

Was that it? Would Henry finally let her go if she came clean?

She sighed, dropped her hands at her sides, and said, “It was me. I killed him.”

The detective scoffed. “What? How could you’ve—”

“I was the one who pushed him in front of that car…” she trailed off, crossing her arms to hug herself as memories of that night flooded back. “And if I hadn’t done that—”

“Emily.” Amber rested a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Come with me.”

She followed behind the detective, arms crossed, hoping that no one inside the church watched her. It would only fuel whatever twisted conclusions they had about her. The detective approached a police car within the parking lot and opened the passenger door. Emily hesitated at first but entered, waiting for Amber to sit inside.

The barrier between Emily and the detective’s seats was a sole laptop hoisted by a stand beside the car radio. Detective Amber clicked away at the keyboard while Emily tore at her chipped fingernails. Her hands should’ve been thrown in cuffs already. What was she waiting for?

“We only showed this to the immediate family before closing the case,” Amber said. She turned the computer, giving Emily a better view of the screen. “It’s CCTV footage from your neighbor’s Ring camera. The night Henry passed.”

The video played, and despite the grainy faces, Emily saw herself, outside in her pajamas, frantically pulling on Henry’s arm in the grass. She remembered this moment. She had told a bad joke at the worst time, despite knowing better, so of course, Henry became upset. They fought for so long that he grew tired and stormed out the door, threatening to leave her. She followed him outside, wanting another chance. You don’t deserve one, he yelled. In the midst of her begging, Henry smacked her, then pushed her to the ground. She crawled to him, but he ran into the road, oblivious to the white truck hurtling down.

The detective paused the video just before the crash. “I think it’s safe to end it there.”

Emily stared blankly at the screen. “But I thought…” Her finger inched closer to the keyboard. “Can I?”

The detective pushed the laptop closer to Emily. “Yeah. Whatever you need.”

Emily replayed the video again and again, waiting for the moment when she rose from the grass and pushed Henry into the street, but each time it played, it never happened. Her jaw clenched as tears began welling in her eyes.

Detective Amber reached for the glove compartment and pulled out brown paper napkins, handing them to her. “I don’t have any tissues. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Emily muttered. She rubbed her eyes with the napkins until they burned from the sandpaper-like texture. “I’m sorry I’m wasting your time. I just thought—”

“No, you’re not wasting my time. I’ve done this job for a while and…judging by our last talk, you deserve to see what happened.”

Emily sniffed, shaking her head. The video had paused on her while in the grass, stuck on her knees. At that time, pouring everything into one person had become such a habit that she now couldn’t pinpoint when it consumed her. “I don’t even recognize myself in this.”

The detective sighed, shutting the laptop. “You will again. I’ve seen it. People always cycle back to who they’ve always been. For better or for worse.”

Emily wiped her nose with the napkin. “Who do you think I am?”

Detective Amber almost frowned at her, and Emily couldn’t tell if the look was sympathetic or just plain pity. “I can’t say. But I can tell you what you are now.” A small smile peeked at the corner of her mouth. “You’re free.”

She sat still with Amber’s words, letting the realization linger for a moment longer, then repeated, “I’m free.”

After sitting in the silence of a cool afternoon, she thanked the detective for her time and left. She found her keys in her purse as she walked to her car and rushed inside. The hands of the small analog clock above the car radio pointed to 5:15. Usually, she would be home at this time, waiting for Henry to return from work, because that was all she ever did.

Wait for him. Rely on him.

She no longer knew the girl who existed before they met. Henry had stripped that away.

Sucking in a breath, Emily hit the steering wheel once, reveling in the quick release of whatever bubbled underneath that she hit it again, and again, and again and again, punching it into oblivion until she ultimately sank her head into it and cried. Today was supposed to be her day to mourn, so before she drove home, she let herself grieve.