Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [4]
She knew it was time to dispose of the ashes and she was sure she knew what Bob would have wanted. Or had he only meant it in jest? Even after eight years of marriage, she sometimes missed the giveaway twitch of his eyelid that meant sarcasm or irony. But she believed he was clear about cremation. He said that he had seen enough bodies: dog bodies, cats, horses, iguanas, cockatiels, all of them, and that when the spirit was gone, the body was done. He had stood in the bathroom, watching Rocky as she bathed.
“We recycle, right? We bundle up our newspapers, bring them to the recycling center where the big trucks haul them off and they get ground up and made back into some other kind of paper. Make me elemental when I die. Make me into dust, bone meal, plant food.” Rocky had loved watching him orate naked, his soft penis flopping side to side as he gestured with his toothbrush.
Well, that had been clear enough and she hadn’t been left to decide on her own. She knew. It was the disposal part that made her pause. Had he really meant what he said on several occasions?
“Toss me in the fooking fake fried clam vats! Wouldn’t that be something? Clog up the machines. Call in the Health Inspectors! I’d be performing a public service.” Bob treated the greasy restaurant like it was a drug dealer; the place was despicable, unless he craved what they offered.
Rocky drove to Johnny’s Drive-In with the ashes divided into two plastic baggies in the seat next to her. It was midafternoon and the owner, a regular golfer, was just teeing off at the municipal course. It was a well-known fact that the owner rarely worked, and he had bragged to Bob, during a rabies clinic, that afternoons were meant for golfing and not working. She slipped the bags into her jacket pockets.
“I’m from the health department and I need to make an inspection,” she lied and flashed her university card at the high school boy behind the counter. She walked around the counter and opened up the walk-in refrigerator.
“Looks good, everything looks fine.” She scribbled notes on a legal pad. A customer came in and the boy turned his attention from Rocky. She walked directly to the deep-fry machine. She had never been this close to one before and she thought it looked dangerous. She considered that the high school kids who worked here were in peril. She pulled the two bags from her pockets and emptied the remains of Bob into the fryer.
The deep fryers flared when Bob was dropped in. The counter boy turned and looked at her.
“Everything’s fine back here, just doing a fryer test,” she said.
Now that the last of Bob was deep-fried, hot and salty, she didn’t want Johnny to change the oil right away. Customers who came for the solace of hot, greasy food would taste the fooking, almighty sweetness of Bob. If they were sad, if their dog had been put down, if they needed the salty sweetness of a momentary cure, they had come to right place.
It was not until she walked in the side entrance of her house, stepped into the kitchen, and saw the urn on its side on the counter, that she realized what she had done. She clutched the urn to her stomach and pressed hard. Deep howls emptied out of her and jerked her body as if her tendons had sprung loose. Each blast of sound battered her until she wondered if her neck would snap. In the end, Rocky lay on the floor with the urn and saw the boundary land of madness open up before her and felt a seductive pull.
Chapter 2
When Bob had died, the brushed cotton sheets had been on their bed for one week. Only one week of precious scents left on their bed, one week of his head pressing deeply into his pillow, leaving an invisible impression. She wished she had not been so concerned about sheets