Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

I only have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.” They laughed, stumbling along the silent plush-floored corridor, and got into the elevator where they were stared at with astonishment—laughter being most uncommon in this place.

    The LakeShore Funeral Home was an extensive new building of golden brick—so new that the field around it had not yet been transformed into lawns and shrubbery. Except for the sign, you might have thought it a medical clinic, or government office building. The name LakeShore did not mean that it overlooked the lake but was instead a sly incorporation of the family name of the undertaker—Bruce Shore. Some people thought this tasteless. When the business had been conducted in one of the large Victorian houses in town and had belonged to Bruce’s father, it had been simply the Shore Funeral Home. And it had in fact been a home, with plenty of room for Ed and Kitty Shore and their five children on the second and third floors.
    Nobody lived in this new establishment, but there was a bedroom with kitchen facilities, and a shower. This was in case Bruce Shore found it more convenient to stay overnight instead of driving fifteen miles to the country place where he and his wife raised horses.
    Last night had been one of those nights because of the accident north of town. A car full of teenagers had crashed into a bridge abutment. This sort of thing—a newly licensed driver or one not licensed at all, everybody wildly drunk—usually happened in the spring around graduation time, or in the excitement of the first couple of weeks at school in September. Now was the time when you looked more for the fatalities of newcomers—nurses fresh from the Philippines last year—caught in the first altogether unfamiliar snow.
    Nevertheless, on a perfectly fine night and dry road, it had been two seventeen-year-olds, both from town. And just before that, in came Lewis Spiers. Bruce had his hands full—the work he had to do on the kids, to make them presentable, took him far into the night. He had called up his father. Ed and Kitty, who still spent the summers in the house in town, had not yet left for Florida, and Ed had come in to tend to Lewis.
    Bruce had gone for a run, to refresh himself. He hadn’t even had breakfast and was still in his jogging outfit when he saw Mrs. Spiers pull up in her old Honda Accord. He hurried to the waiting room to get the door open for her.
    She was a tall, skinny woman, gray-haired but youthfully speedy in her movements. She didn’t appear too cut up this morning, though he noticed she hadn’t bothered with a coat.
    “Sorry. Sorry,” he said. “I just got back from a little exercise.
    Shirley’s not in yet, I’m afraid. We sure feel bad about your loss.”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Mr. Spiers taught me Grade Eleven and Twelve Science, and he was one teacher I’ll never forget. Would you like to sit down? I know you must have been prepared in a way, but it’s still an experience you’re never prepared for when it happens. Would you like me to go through the paperwork with you now or would you like to see your husband?”
    She said, “All we wanted was a cremation.”
    He nodded. “Yes. Cremation to follow.”
    “No. He was supposed to be cremated immediately. That’s what he wanted. I thought I could pick up his ashes.”
    “Well, we didn’t have any instructions that way,” said Bruce firmly. “We prepared the body for viewing. He looks very good, actually. I think you’ll be pleased.”
    She stood and stared at him.
    “Don’t you want to sit down?” he said. “You did plan on having some sort of visitation, didn’t you? Some sort of service? There’s going to be an awful lot of people want to pay their respects to Mr. Spiers. You know, we have conducted other services here where there wasn’t any religious persuasion. Just somebody to give a eulogy, instead of a preacher. Or if you don’t even want it that formal, you can just have people getting up and voicing their thoughts. It’s up to you whether you want the casket open or closed. But around here people usually seem to like to have it open. When you’re going for cremation you don’t have the same range of caskets, of course. We have caskets that look very nice, but they are only a fraction of the cost.”
    Stood and stared.
    The fact was that the work had been done and there had been no instructions that the work was not to be done. Work like any other work that should be paid for. Not