Instead I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, feeling the gentle scrape of his stubble and breathing deep to savor his earthy scent. “Thank you,” I whispered.
He smiled, a flicker of something in his expression making me pause for a second. And then it was gone. “See you tomorrow,” he said casually.
I walked to the apartment, feeling as I so often did with Zander: confused. One step forward, two back. I thought we’d finally made some headway, but I wasn’t completely sure. He’d given me something real, but only because I’d dragged it out of him. Not because he wanted to. And I couldn’t rid myself of the way his mom talked about us, how perfectly my ability complemented his. Did he care? Did he want to be with me? Or were we were bound like strangers in our own sort of arranged marriage?
I worried that with Zander, I might never really know.
Chapter 26
It took a long time to fall asleep that night. I didn’t know what to do about Zander, wished so much Calliope were less a proponent of his role and more a mother. She’d clearly thought Nan was wrong not to tell me about the mark. Mostly, I agreed, but I’d had sixteen years of friends and playgrounds and fun because she hadn’t. Zander had had death and duty, to be executed no matter who or what was affected. I could only begin to imagine what a twisted mess his psyche was.
When my alarm went off at seven, I dragged myself out of bed wishing I’d had the guts to ignore Mr. Ludwig’s call. He left a message while I was at Zander’s; they’d gotten a body in, did I want to come help? No. But I owed it to him, having called in my last shift and two others before that.
I made it to the funeral home just after eight and came face-to-face with the last person I wanted to see: Ryan.
“Hi, Cassie.” His voice was chilly.
“Hey, Ryan. Are you working today?” Please, God, no.
He shook his head. “I just stopped in to grab a book I left yesterday.”
He turned to leave.
“Ryan, listen.” I sighed, not wanting to deal with this at all, but knowing if I didn’t it would be a thousand times worse the next time I saw him. “I’m sorry about the other night. I didn’t realize Zander was going to show up. I hope you’re not mad that I stayed. He and I had some … well, things we needed to sort out.” And still do.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
I shrugged. “Sort of.”
“Sort of ?” Ryan frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Yes,” I admitted, not sure why I hadn’t just come out with it in the first place. “He is.”
“Uh-huh.” Ryan picked up his backpack and slung it over a shoulder. “That’s what I thought.” He paused by the door. “You know, you could have just told me, Cassie. I get the feeling there’s a lot of stuff going on with you that you’re not so up front about. Your choice.” He shrugged. “But I’ve never found that a very good way to live.”
He disappeared around the corner. I stood there, stung and surprised to feel the start of tears. You are not a bad person, I reassured myself. You’re overreacting. Overtired.
Not how I wanted to begin this shift.
I think Mr. Ludwig was kind of surprised I actually showed up. “I’m glad to see you, Cassie.”
I nodded, slipping on the lightly powdered gloves I’d need to assist with the body. “Thanks, I’m sorry I’m late and that I’ve been out lately,” I said quickly, busying myself with rearranging the tools. “I haven’t been feeling well. And then I had some stuff at school …”
“I understand,” he said in a way that told me he understood I wasn’t being truthful, but was forgiven anyway.
“You do?”
It was his turn to nod. “I think I know part of the reason you’ve been … away.” He gestured for a scalpel. I passed it to him and he continued. “You don’t need to worry today,” he said. “He’s already left, but I know that Ryan Wilton has, let’s say, an interest in you?” He glanced up, lifting those fine brows.
I blushed and Mr. Ludwig took it as confirmation. “Perhaps that has made you uncomfortable here?”
“It’s not Ryan’s fault,” I said.
“No,” he said, bending over the body to slice deftly through skin, “attraction is rarely within our control, especially for the young.”
Ugh. I did not want to talk about his, but I owed it to Ryan to clear his name. “I didn’t mean that,” I clarified. “Ryan hasn’t done anything wrong and I’m not uncomfortable around him.” The last part was a complete lie.
“Well, either way, he’s not here today,” Mr. Ludwig said. “So you will not have to be comfortable or uncomfortable with him. Only me.” He flashed his merry smile.
I watched him concentrating on the body, parting the skin to insert the drain tube. This one was a four-pointer, meaning the embalming had to be done with not just one insertion at the neck but at various spots, usually because of some kind of circulatory problem. Studying the body on the table, I realized that I’d barely looked at it before now. Partly because I was exhausted and distracted by my ugly exchange with Ryan. But I’d carried on a normal conversation with my boss over this na**d dead person without even noticing whether it was male or female. That would have been hard to believe two months ago.
“What happened to her?” I asked now.
“Stroke,” Mr. Ludwig answered immediately, used to the pattern of my inquiries. I smiled a little, definitely comfortable with him.
Still, I was hesitant to ask the next question, the most important one. I’d never asked before—not him or anyone else—though it had certainly been on my mind with every corpse we’d worked on.
“If you’d had the chance to save her,” I said slowly, “but if you saved her, someone else would die in her place—would you? Would you change her fate?”
My heart was pounding, but Mr. Ludwig didn’t bat an eye. He didn’t ask any of the side-tracking questions about treating illnesses or how you could know something like that or why I wanted to know. Instead, he tackled the question, the exact one I was asking.
“There are many things to think about with what we call fate,” he said. “If you can change it, perhaps it isn’t really fate after all, is it?”
He adjusted the drain tube, then leaned back. “Part of the Japanese religion, my mother would tell you, is how things in this world and beyond are all interconnected.” He smiled. “I will give you an example: a woman milks a cow in a small barn, little more than a shed, early one morning. She leaves—maybe the baby cried or her husband called. Maybe she just has to use the bathroom. The cow knocks over the lantern. A fire starts. It hasn’t rained much lately and it’s a windy day so it spreads quickly. The local firemen worked late into the night before on another call. They’re tired. They get lost trying to find the shed when a neighbor finally calls.”