Member-only story
The First Time I Met My Mum’s Abusive Ex-Husband, He Was Dead
Tales from the chapel of rest
“I think I’ve got your ex-husband in our chapel of rest, can I check?”
I’d spent all day working on what I should say to my mum, what would be the best way to go about it. All those hours of thinking didn’t make a difference in the end.
His Arrival
It had been a regular Saturday, as ever these kinds of stories go, with very little going on. Of course, had it remained that way, it wouldn’t be worth talking about. I was part of a trial — opening the funeral home on a weekend day to see if it was worth rolling out to all of the others (it wasn’t). It had reached the point that I almost saw it as a day off because no one ever came in. Every Saturday I got a break from how busy the rest of the workweek was; I could bring along my laptop and write. It felt like freedom.
Very rarely did other staff come along. This particular Saturday though, they surprised me. I heard the telltale rustling and door slamming in the back of the building that told me a few strong men had arrived with something for me.
To reach the back of the building, the coffin workshop, meant passing through a chapel of rest. The rest of the building would always be quiet and still, but a certain…
