Ashes by Haunted Computer Books Page A

professional
embalming job, a final show of respect.
    "I put up with it long
enough because of your father. And now that he's gone, there's no
reason to hang around this—this mausoleum ." Mother's hair was stiff
from a forty-dollar frosting job at her hairdresser's. It didn't
shift as she wrung her hands and rolled her eyes in another of her
classic "spells."
    "We've invested so much in the Home," Gaines
said. "But this isn't about money. This is about tradition."
    "Tradition, my foot. Your grandfather was a
drunkard and a fool. He started the business because this was the
only one that couldn't possibly fail. And your father was just like
him. Only he had the sense to marry somebody with a good head for
business."
    "And business has never been better," Gaines
said. "So why sell now?"
    "Why? Because I've given
enough of my life to the Wadell Funeral Home. I've had it up
to here —" she put a
hand to her surgically-tucked and shiny chin,"—with death and
dying. And there you go, wasting a quarter grand on
remodeling."
    Gaines looked around the parlor. The brooding
red pine paneling was gone, the walls now covered with
clear-varnished oak. Strip spotlights hung in place of the
fluorescent tubes that had once vomited their weak green light.
Purple velvet drapes hung from the windows, in thick folds of the
regal splendor that the guests of honor so richly deserved. On a
raised platform at the rear of the room, soft light bathed the bier
where the guests received their final tribute.
    The sinking sun pried its way through the
front glass, suffusing the bleached woodwork of the dais with a
red-golden light. No dust gathered on the plush cushioning he had
added to the straight-backed pews. The room smelled of wax and
rosewater, incense and carnations. Not the slightest aroma of
decaying flesh was allowed in the parlor area.
    This had been a place of peace. But lately it
was a place for the same argument again and again.
    "Mother, please be reasonable," Gaines said.
"I know Father left you the Home in his will, but he told both of
us a hundred times that he wanted me to carry on the business. It’s
the only thing he really felt passion for."
    “ That’s the truth.” She
shook her head slowly, and in the soft light, she looked about half
of her sixty-eight years. "I’m not doing this just for me. Though,
Lord knows, I'm ready for a change. It's mostly for
you."
    "Me?"
    "You think I want my only son to spend his
life up to his elbows in the guts of corpses? Do you want to go
home every night and take two long showers, but no matter how hard
you scrub, the smell stays with you? It's in the food you eat, the
air you breathe, it's in the water you drink, it's in your blood.
And I want to save you from that."
    In your
blood . That's what Mother didn't
understand. The funeral parlor was more than a family business. It
was a duty, a sacred trust. "You can't sell it," he
said.
    "Oh, I can't? You just watch." Mother stamped
her two-inch heel onto the parquet floor and bustled from the
room.
    Gaines heard the side door slam as Mother
left the parlor. Warmth crept up his face, a rush of emotion that
no good interment man should allow to show. He couldn't lose his
temper. Not with Stony Hampton's viewing a half-hour away.
    He could be angry at Mother, but not at
Stony's expense. Stony was a much-beloved member of the community
and a top-notch mechanic. Sure, he'd had a fondness for moonshine
and the cigarettes that had eventually stifled his lungs, and maybe
he'd slapped his kids around a little, but all that was forgiven
now, at least until the man was in the ground. For a few days, from
the hour of death to service to burial, even the lowest scoundrel
was a saint.
    Gaines went through a curtained passage off
one wing of the dais. The back room always calmed him. This, too,
was a place of peace, but a peace of a different kind. This was
where Gaines was alone with his art.
    The sweet aroma of formaldehyde embraced him
as he opened a