Death

The day that Ned died was the day that Suzanne was sure her life had ended.
It had been coming on for awhile. They had been expecting it for eight and a half long months—or rather, Suzanne had been expecting, dreading it since the day of their marriage.

Now, she sat in the middle of a crowded pew, deaf and numb amidst a sea of sniffling and discreet whispers. She stared up at the thick circular wreath of yellow daffodils. Thoughtful, Suzanne thought. Bonnie knows they’re Ned’s favorites

Were, Suzanne corrected herself. They were Ned’s favorites. Ned wasn’t there to enjoy them. What a ridiculous irony; why not choose someone else’s favorite flower? Ned’s body lay in the maple coffinpolished to a brilliant sheen, that stood at the front of the room. But he wasn’t there.

She sighed, feeling her frustration build. Immediately, she fel Bonnie’s hand on her arm. Bonnie: bright-eyed, ready in an instant to be the sympathetic friend she thought Suzanne needed. Bonnie, who had been, according to the church committee chair, “A Godsend to the Flewellyn family in their times of trial.”

Suzanne wanted to shake the warm, plump hand off her shoulder in the worst way—it felt as unwelcome there as a tarantula.

“How you doing, darlin’?”

“I’m fine.” Suzanne somehow managed a civil tone.

The service went slowly. People talking like they knew Ned. People saying nice things about him, joking about his little quirks. Suzanne got up and said a few words, feeling completely removed as if they were coming from someone else’s mouth.

We knew this day would happen.

Ned loved all of you.

Ned wouldn’t want people to be sad at his passing.

It was a script she was reading—words that didn’t encapsulate in any way what she felt, or what Ned had felt at the end. She saw it in her mind, Ned’s piercing, grey eyes. She heard his gruff voice—

“Suzy. You going to be all right?"

Suzanne had looked at him, the broad, jovial face she had studied every single day of their marriage, kept etched in her mind. She even thought, many times, of the time she’d have to do this, have to say goodbye and hope to God she had looked at him enough that she could remember.

“Do what you have to do, Ned,” she had said. “I’ll manage for a while.”

“I’ll be there with you.”

Suzanne had nodded, but had felt resentment well up inside of her. How did he know? He didn’t really know what would happen. Didn’t have any proof at all that he could be there for her, or even that he’d really exist. How he make such blind promises? It was cruel. For his sake, she had masked her fear and anger and sat quietly at his bedside, day after day, watching him slip further and further from his surroundings. And when he left, she had sat there, at his side, for a couple of hours, pretending she could still see his chest rise, just a little; see his breath rattle the Kleenex that emerged from the box at his bedside.

Everyone stood for the last hymn. Suzanne broke from her reverie and stood, mouthing the words. She moved her feet with the crowd to the cemetery, gazed at the wooden sheen on the curved top of the coffin as it was lowered. She crooked her neck and stared at the grass around her feet while someone prayed. She straightened and grinned, grinned, grinned and shook, shook, shook hands until she got to her car. She got in, shut the door, and drove home, leaving everyone else to celebrate.

When she got home, she lay down on the bed, setting her head in the indentation Ned’s had left. She felt herself drift, imagining to herself that if she lay still enough—perhaps she could stop breathing. The next breath she took could be a little shallower, then the next, barely anything. It wouldn’t be hard. Just a matter of will power.

“You can, you know.”

Suzanne sat up violently, bashing her head into the corner of the nightstand. She swore—a world that had not come to her lips for three decades, at least.

“Sorry,” the man said.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my bedroom?”

The man didn’t answer; he looked at her. His broad, chiseled face—not unlike Ned’s, in fact; there was something about the cheekbones—was eloquent.
Belated fear suddenly gripped Suzanne’s heart. Maybe this was the end. Maybe God heard her prayers.

But she hadn’t really banked on a possibly violent death. Death by stabbing, strangling, shooting—she glanced surreptitiously at his hands and saw they were empty, clasped over his (somewhat ample) midsection.

“Violence isn’t my style,” the man said, as if he’d heard her thoughts. “Don’t worry—it’ll all be very gentle. If it’s what you want, that is.” He shrugged. “Of course, you get to make the decision.”

Suzanne stared at the man, taking in his salt-and-pepper hair, his dark, intelligent eyes and rather forbidding pointed eyebrows.

As if to reassure her, he smiled—a very kindly smile.

Suzanne shivered. “What do you want? I’ll cooperate.” She slid to the edge of the bed and timidly stood, watching for any movement on his part. “There’s some silver in the kitchen. We’ve got a seventeen-inch flat screen in the living room. Nothing else much of value I—I’m afraid.” Her mind flicked to the safe, hidden upstairs in the attic.But he couldn’t have had time to find that. Why would he search a house only to wake up its occupant before he—no. This had to be something far more sinister.

She took an unobtrusive step toward the door.

“I’m not here to take your possessions. Well, not anything tangible, at least. I’m here for your soul.” He nodded at her, as if this outrageous statement were reasonable, and she ought to be following him perfectly.

Suzanne thought to herself that the phone was right by her hand; she could pick it up and dial 911 in less than a second, and even if she didn’t have time to say where she was or what was happening, she could scream at least—

“They won’t see me, of course.” the man interrupted her thoughts again. “And since you invited me here, I’m not breaking any law to speak of.” He smiled then, and moved toward her. “Let’s get comfortable. I want to get to know you a little bit better before we do this thing.”

“What thing?” Suzanne’s voice came out in a high squeak.

“Death,” The man said, as if it were obvious.

“You’re—you’re going to kill me?” Suzanne whispered. Her fingers shook as she edged her hand toward the phone.

“I’ll take your soul up. If you want me to. You don’t believe a word I’m saying,” he added, glancing at her hand. “All right, then. I thought we were on the same page, but clearly we are not.” He shrugged. “I must admit I thought you were better prepared. Ned seemed to think you—but really, it’s not surprising. Happens a lot, in fact. Well…here, then.”

He walked toward her swiftly, and Suzanne felt her heart nearly leap out of her chest as he put his palm on hers. It was warm, strong, perfect—but held a strange sort of resonance when it touched her, like the pins-and-needles feeling of having a limb fall asleep. And as he kept his hand on hers, suddenly she felt as if her senses were disappearing, she felt as if she were emerging, somehow, like she rose up out of her body and—

She looked down, then, at her body, which had fallen against the wall in an akward position and cried out, wrenching her…
whatever it was—hand? Energy? who knew—from the grip of…

“Are we on the same page, now?” Death asked, releasing her hand.

“Yes,” Suzanne whispered.

She felt as if she slid, as if she were suddenly sucked into place, and found herself looking down at her hand again, her flesh hand. She moved her fingers carefully, and the pins-and-needles feeling disappeared.
Suzanne’s knees shook as she stood.

“Are you called Death, then?” She asked, finally. “Is that your actual name?”

“You don’t really have to call me anything,” he replied. “I’m not all that important. Just an envoy.”

“I can die today?” She asked, skipping ahead a bit.

“We like to delay it by a couple of weeks. Give you time to prepare, make it less obvious.”

“Obvious, how?”

“We do this for most widows and widowers that have lived out the majority of their lives—give them a choice. But we don’t want everyone to plan on it, and we don’t want people to give up, knowing they’ll have a choice.”

Suzanne paused again on her way back to the window. “We?”

He smiled enigmatically at her.

Suzanne quelled a shiver, and tried another question. “Every person who has a spouse die…what’s the cutoff age?”

Death squinted at Suzanne. “Beg your pardon?”

“How old is old enough? I mean…” she shrugged. “How do you decide who’s eligible to make the choice, to stay or—“

“It’s not so much age, really. It’s more about how the person has accomplished their life’s goals or not, or a mission they’ve been given.”

“So I have accomplished all my missions, then?”

“In a sense. You’ve done all the things necessary.”

“OK.”

“Of course, there’s more you could do, if you wanted.”

Suzanne shook her head. “More? Like… charity and stuff?”

Death shrugged. “There are a few loose threads in your life. You could go, and be fine. But you don’t really know what will happen to those around you—to all that you were involved in, before you leave. But then, you never do. Whether you die in three weeks, or fifty, there’s not much you can do to change other people’s choices.”

“You mean Judy.” Suzanne stated it flatly. “All right, is this some kind of prank? I could almost see Ned doing something like this—scare me into calling her…”

“I could give you another demonstration,” Death answered, moving his hand toward hers again.

Suzanne snatched her hand off the table. “No thanks. Why should I stay for that ungrateful, manipulative…”

“He’s Ned’s daughter, Suzanne.”

“She never accepted me.”

“It was hard on her.”

“You sound just like Ned.”

“That's not surprising. I did talk to him right before coming to you. He mentioend Judy.”

Suzanne threw up her hands, then clutched her hair in a mix of exasperation and outraged sensibility.

Ned was in a coffin in the dirt.

Death was in her room.

Talking about Judy.

Saying he’d just talked to Ned.

She must have taken something… maybe Bonnie, out of misplaced kindness, had slipped something into… something—no, she hadn’t eaten anything today.
Maybe that was it. Maybe she was having some kind of strange insulin attack from lack of nourishment. The doctor did tell her, a few months ago, that she had to be careful, she was borderline-diabetic…

“Don’t you want to know what Ned had to say about it?”

Suzanne shook her head, and shut her eyes, tight. “About what?”

“About Judy. About you staying or going. Could be a big factor in your decision. Whatever you want to know, Suzanne… you can ask me.”

“What did Ned say about Judy?” Suzanne asked woodenly, and opened her eyes calmly. As long as she was hallucinating, she might as well play along until she woke up. It was entertaining, at least.

“You’re not hallucinating. He really wants you to stay and see what you can do for Judy.”

“Big surprise,” Suzanne muttered.

“Well, don’t you think you owe that to him? Just a little bit. After all—he gave so much to you.”

Suzanne stared at him, jaw agape. “She’d just slam the door in my face.”

“A few slammed doors is nothing in the face of what could happen,” Death replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Well… I’ve had occasion to linger over there these last few months. And I’m of a mind to agree with Ned. And don’t forget he’ll be the one you’ll be with after this. Don’t you want to meet on terms that are free of guilt? Take my word for it… you don’t want to carry guilt into the next life. And while it’s impossible to be completely free of regrets… lightening your load as much as possible is extremely advisable."

Suzanne shook her head. “I—OK,” she said. “You’ve—you say you’ve been over there?”

Death paused. “I have.”

“For what reason? Is—“

“I can’t tell you. You’ve got to do this on your own. Freedom of choice and all that. You understand.”

“Ned doesn’t want me to come.” Suzanne said.

“Well, he loves you. But he also loves Judy.”

“Right.”

Death shifted his weight from one foot to another. “I’ve got about five more minutes. You need to make a choice. I’ll come back next year, if you decide to stay.”

“Wait—you… I can stay only a year? I can probably clear things up a bit in a year.

A year. "Could I survive a year?” Suzanne said it almost to herself, and felt as if death’s hand must be touching her heart… it seemed to die in her chest, at the thought of a year.

A year without Ned.

“I should also tell you—you won’t remember this at all. Every time you see and talk to me… however many times that is, your memory will be wiped clean, and you’ll go on without knowing about all this about the choice.”

“I’ll feel like I just have to go on forever without him.”

“I’m sorry but, yes. IT will feel like that some times. But as I said… I can come back next year. On this same day—the anniversary of your husband’s death, and you’ll have an opportunity to make the choice again.”

There was a long pause. Suzanne scrutinized her fingers, winding them together, clenching her palms together until the knuckles were white. Here’s the church… here’s the steeple… open the doors… “How do I know you’re—I mean. There’s things people say about angels, and… how do I know you’re from… not from, that other place?”

“I guess some things I can’t really prove, Suzanne.” Death smiled. “You’ll just have to take it on faith.”

Suzanne shook her head. “This is entirely crazy. And I just thought of something—if I don’t remember this, how will I know about talking to Judy, working everything out so I can make Ned happy, and be ready for him next year?”

“You won’t.”