Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

Like Henry.
“His brother was making out with his girlfriend in his car and didn’t
notice for ten minutes,” she whispers, her throat thick.
I almost feel sorry for him, too. A mistake that will haunt him forever.
And I’m here. Alive. Healthy. Continuously making problems worse,
because I act like I don’t have a clue.
I smooth back his hair, everything at home forgotten for the moment,
because somewhere out there in town is a devastated family who will never
see their son smile again.
I draw in a deep breath and swallow the tears that want to come as I raise
my eyes to Mrs. Gates. “Embalming?”
“Yes,” she tells me. “There will be a viewing on Thursday followed by
cremation.”
I nod and pull the rubber band off my wrist, sweeping my hair up into a
ponytail. “I’ll take the lead.”
We work for the next two hours, not talking other than her instruction
here and there. I can’t look him in the face when the needles go in, feeling the
bile rise, because it’s hard not to see Henry on the table. We prepare him to
stay preserved until the funeral, and I’ll come back in a couple of days to take
care of the cosmetics and dress him, but the embalming process takes longer
with me here now, because it’s like the first time I’m doing it all over again.
What mattered most to me with Henry was that Mrs. Gates was gentle with
my brother. I take extra care with this one.
“Did I ever tell you that I lived in New York for a time?” Mrs. Gates says
across the table.
I meet her eyes as we work.
“I loved it.” She smiles a little. “Too cold, but it was a lot of fun. That’s
where I studied to become a funeral director.”
I think I knew that, but I can’t be sure.
She shuts off the machine. “It’s one of the best schools in the country for
mortuary science.”
Mortuary science?
“I can get you in,” she says. “If you want to go.”
I stop, locking eyes with her. My first instinct is to laugh or scoff. I can’t
tell people I’m an undertaker. It’s not romantic like an actor or an artist, or
heroic like a lawyer or a doctor.
But then, most people haven’t seen what I’ve seen here, either. Mrs.