Todd Harra - Mortuary Confidential

“Oh my God, Dani, you’re a life saver!”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but thanks, Toph. One condition though—” she trailed off.

“What would that be, my dear?” I asked coyly. I knew what was coming.

“No strange women in my bed.”

“Why Dani, I would never—”

She cut me off. “Save it, lover boy. Gotta run. I’ll drop the key tomorrow.”

We hung up.

I had met Danielle Brown, or Dani, as her friends call her, about twelve years earlier when I first got into the mortuary business. She worked for the Omega Counseling Center. I was looking for a place to refer clients of mine. We met and became friends.

Dani left Omega to open her own clinic, The Hope Clinic, that specializes in drug and alcohol recovery counseling, something closer to her heart than what she had been doing as a general family counselor at Omega.

Dani found her life’s calling after her own bout with alcoholism in her late teens. Her mother and father had both been alcoholics. Her mother died in a drunk driving accident when Dani was ten years old, and her father died of liver cirrhosis about three years ago—I buried him. Now fifteen years sober, Dani is a big advocate for local chapters of AA and MADD programs. Though Dani specializes in addiction counseling, she still takes my referrals as a favor to me; I don’t trust my clients with anyone else.

I was embalming a body the morning after our conversation when Dani dropped the keys off with the receptionist, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. I couldn’t wait to get down to Lower Matecumbe and enjoy some quality time on the beach sipping a Rum Runner and listening to Ziggy Marley. So excited that I wasn’t even bothered when I was awoken at some god-awful time the following morning to make a removal.

I hired a trade embalmer to cover for me, gave explicit instructions to my apprentice, told my receptionist to hold all my calls, and headed for the Keys. It’s about a six-hour drive from my mortuary to Lower Matecumbe. I put the top down on my car and made it to Key Largo in a little less than five hours. Since I knew Dani’s house would be bone-dry, I stopped at a liquor store for some supplies and then drove another hour down Route 1, where I made a stop in Islamorada for a couple bags of ice. From Islamorada, Dani’s condo is just a couple of miles. I parked my Mustang in the palm-shaded lot and left my small gym bag in the car in favor of unloading the essentials.

I threw open all the windows and immediately set to work pouring Bacardi and Malibu rum over ice in the blender, adding cranberry, orange, and pineapple juice, and topping my creation off with a splash of Bacardi 151 rum. In minutes, I was sitting in a chair on the beach enjoying my Rum Runner and watching the sunset. Honestly, watching the sun go down over the gently lapping waves in the Keys is one of the most beautiful things in the world. All the stress of the past year melted away.

I was about halfway through my cocktail when I felt my phone vibrate. I cursed and decided not to answer it, but checked the caller I.D. It was Dani.

Probably just checking to make sure I arrived all right, I thought. I decided to answer it.

It wasn’t Dani. It was Leo, her husband.

“Topher,” he said. His voice sounded strange. Strained. “You need to come back.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

There was a long pause and then he said, “Dani was involved in a drunk driving accident this evening. She’s dead.”

My head swam. “But how—”

“She was on her way home from my mother’s. She had just dropped the kids off for the weekend—” He gulped. “The driver of the other car hit a guardrail on the freeway and swerved into her. His blood alcohol level was 0.28; he’s fine. But Dani—” There was a pause. I thought I had lost the connection. “They said it was instantaneous…” Leo trailed off.

I sat stunned for a moment. I mumbled something into the phone. I heard a garbled, “Thanks,” and the line went dead.

With a heavy heart, I retraced my steps north to give Dani the last gift I had to give in our friendship.

The world is filled with injustice, but Dani seemed to have been dealt an especially cruel fate after all she had worked for and achieved. Her death was a bitter pill to swallow. I still kick myself that I didn’t come out to say hello to Dani that day she dropped the keys off. I guess what I’m trying to say is: always make your peace with your friends and family because you never know when the last time will be.

When I was a boy I had to get dressed up for everything . Today, everyone is casual. I see kids in church on Sunday wearing jeans, people in fine dining establishments wearing shorts, and of course, people coming to services at my funeral home in any number of… costumes. I see tee shirts, ripped jeans, sneakers, tawdry mini-skirts, and the like. Gone are the days of dark suited men and elegantly dressed women wearing big hats clustered in the funeral parlor under clouds of blue cigarette smoke, whispering in hushed tones. Casual is in, even at a funeral.

Things sure have changed. For the better, I can’t say, but I know when I was a boy my mother insisted I wear a suit for just about every occasion. I can remember wearing a suit on the boardwalk at the shore during family vacations. Can you imagine putting on a suit to go get ice cream? But, growing up as the son of an undertaker, I don’t so much remember having to wear my suit for every outing as I do having my father tie my necktie for me.

I would struggle into the starched white shirt with the detachable collar, and then pull on my ill-fitting little dark blue suit. I grew too fast and it always seemed the sleeves were a little too short and the cuffs of the pants a little too high above the tops of my wingtips. Then, tie in hand, I would run to find my father so he could tie it for me.

“What kind of knot are we going to do today, Sport?” he’d ask. “Windsor or Prince Albert?”

“Dad,” I’d protest. “Just do the normal!”

“All right, Sport,” he’d say, twinkle in his eye. “You know the drill.”

I’d lie down on the couch or the floor and he would hover over me, tongue peeking out the side of his mouth as he laboriously swirled the ends of the tie around into the fancy knots my hands could never seem to master. Then, when he was finished, he’d say, “All done, Sport,” and I’d hop up and off I’d go, all pressed out in my little suit.

I was so used to this almost daily ritual, that sometimes when I lie on my back, to this day, I expect to see my father’s face above mine, the scent of his Old Spice aftershave, his large hands fumbling with my tiny tie.

I could never understand why my mother scolded my father for tying my tie. If she caught my father in the act she would say, “For heaven’s sake, stop it, George!” or, “That’s terrible, George, it’s our son!”

And my father would invariably reply, “What, Mary? It’s the only way I know how to do it on someone else! If you don’t like it, you do it then.”

My mother would then grow silent because she didn’t know how to tie a tie, and the issue would be dropped.

It wasn’t until later in life that I figured out what my mother was talking about.

My father enlisted in the Army at age 18 and served for three years in a graves registry unit before the two bombs were dropped. I can only imagine how horrific his job was as the Allied forces plowed through Europe and he followed in the war machine’s gruesome wake. The job, he told me, gave him compassion for the families of the soldiers he bagged and tagged and then buried under French soil. When the war ended, and he was discharged, he opened up a funeral home in his home state and married my mother. I think helping others deal with death must have been his way of coping with the atrocities he saw during the war.