“Hello?” I groggily say into my cell phone Friday morning. My eyes squinting against the bright light, I check the time. Five-freaking-twenty-one in the morning.

“Logan, I need you down here now,” Emmanuel’s voice cuts through the phone with an edge to it. “We got an…interesting one down here.”

I groan and roll over onto my stomach. “Can’t it wait until I’m supposed to come in at nine?”

“They’re wanting to bury the poor woman tomorrow morning,” he says. “And this one is going to take some…serious work.”

I moan again and roll into a sitting position. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

Emmanuel doesn’t even say anything else, just hangs up.

Rubbing my palms against my eyes, I stagger from my bed, into the bathroom.

Twenty-four minutes later, I unlock the doors and walk into the funeral home. Down the stairs I trudge, still hardly able to keep my eyes open. I hang my bag on the hook and pull on my lab coat.

“You said it’d be twenty minutes,” Em growls as I push through the double doors. “That was five minutes ago.”

“My alarm said it was supposed to be three hours from now,” I say as I pull on some gloves. “We can’t all get what we want.”

I turn, and see the body that Emmanuel is trying to work on.

I say trying, because the poor woman is resting on the table in two pieces, the rest of her in ribbons.

“Holy hell,” I breathe as I walk over, taking her in.

Her head has been torn from her body. It nearly looks like it was bitten off. The skin of her neck, though now gray and flat from loss of water, is torn and obviously ripped. The rest of her lies just below the head. She’s covered from head to toe in bruises and scratches.

I see four indents and then long scratch marks. As if she were grabbed, tried to run, only the assailant didn’t let go.

These marks are all over her body.

Her fingernails are broken and ragged, torn off.

“She fought hard,” I say, taking her hand and holding it, looking at how some of them are broken clean off.

“Yes, she did,” Em agrees, pausing, looking at this poor woman. “Every bit of her shows signs of beating. Like whoever did this played with her first. Like a cat and its prey.”

“Have the police caught who did this?” I ask.

I’ve seen some pretty rough things down here in the basement of the mortuary. A lot of blood. Other bodily fluids. Gunshots. Rope burns around necks.

But even my stomach turns at the sight of this woman.

Emmanuel shakes his head. “Not yet. But the family is desperate to give her closure. To move on. Her body has been with the coroner for two weeks already. They just released it to me this morning. Family wants to bury her tomorrow.”

“Open casket?” I ask in horror.

Emmanuel’s gray eyes slide over to mine, and his own face a little pale, nods.

I let out a slow breath between my lips. I nod.

And we get to work.

Having to deal with Shylock and giving him most of my money was bad enough. And now this…

The news is filled with all kinds of horrible things that lead to dead people. Explosions. War. Mass shootings.

Sometimes you see pictures of bodies scattered about. Maybe all their parts aren’t still connected to them. Your stomach turns. You say a little prayer.

Your life moves on.

Those bodies move on, too.

To people like Emmanuel and myself.

We do the best we can to put them back together. To make them look like they once did. So that those loved ones still here in this life can move on.

One square inch of her at a time, we move. Stitching up. Using wax to close over parts of her that cannot be pieced together. We use tubes of makeup. Carefully, so carefully not to pull any of it out, because it’s been so much time, we brush her hair and carefully arrange it.

We return her head atop her shoulders. For hours we work on making it look like there aren’t huge chunks of flesh missing. We cover it all up.

“Who would do this?” I say in a whisper. Half to Emmanuel. Half to this woman. As if she could answer me and tell me the horrific truths of what she saw in her final moments.

“A monster, that’s who,” Emmanuel says as he gently dresses her in the clothing the family provided.

I shake my head. Someone capable of this level of violence doesn’t deserve to be called human, anymore.

It takes the entire day, but by the time dinner rolls around, Miss Carolina Jex looks ready. Her face looks somewhat fake, worked over with so many layers of makeup. But she doesn’t look like a chopped-up cadaver. I think the family will be able to get what they need from this open casket funeral.

“You did good, Logan,” Emmanuel says as we take our gloves off and wash death down the drain. “I’ll call in Craig and Katie to help with the service. You’ve put in more than enough hours this week.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, rolling my head from one side to the other, trying to stretch out the kinks and knots that have formed throughout the day.

Emmanuel nods, and I place a hand on his forearm. “Thanks. You’re a good man, Em.”

He offers a thin little smile and nods. “Get some rest, Logan. I’ll finish up here.”

I look once more at Carolina, now resting peacefully in the casket. “Goodnight.”

Some days this feels like any other job. I forget that my work is based upon when people die. To me it’s no different than a waiter at a restaurant, or a schoolteacher.

But there are days like today, when I walk out into the bright, sunny day, absolutely disoriented and dazed that the sun could possibly be shining, that I am reminded.

We all die eventually. Everyone’s paths to get to that gate are entirely different.

I pray that my arrival will be peaceful.

But, considering my luck, there’s not a chance.

Just as I sink into the driver’s seat of my car, my phone vibrates. I look down to see a text from my little brother, Eshan.

Mom is making tortellini. Eli just got here. Wanna join?

I keep staring at my phone. Really I just want to curl up in my too-small bathtub, turn off the lights, and not think about anything until the water goes cold.

But it’s Eshan, and Eli, and my parents who I haven’t called or seen in three weeks.

So with exhausted fingers, I text my brother back. Be there in twenty.

The traffic is moderate as I work my way from one town to another. I don’t cut through the city, which would be awful this time of day, but take the longer route around the outskirts. Past businesses and homes. Through the normal.

Regular life rolls on no matter how horrible things might have been around them. Oblivious and blessed for it.

I turn onto my old street and roll past Eli’s old house. And then there’s my parents’ red brick house. I park along the curb behind Eli’s black car and walk up to the door.

Everyone’s laughter hits my ears as I walk inside. The front room is calm and put together, as always. I walk past the stairs and into the dining room.

Eli sits at the table with Eshan and my father wheels around the kitchen, attempting to help my mother with dinner in the kitchen.

“Hey, sweetie,” Mom says with a warm smile when I plop down at the table next to Eli. “Dinner will be done in just a minute.”

I smile, though I can tell it doesn’t reach my eyes.

“You smell like dead people,” Eshan says, a little devil’s look in his eyes as he smiles.

This is normally our thing. Teasing each other. Getting on each other’s backs about everything.

But I just don’t have it in me today.

So I don’t say anything. I just look away, watching my parents without really seeing them.

“Are you alright?” Eli asks.

I shrug, not looking at him so he can’t read the weight of the day written across my face.

“Food is ready!” Dad declares. He pulls a few dishes into his lap and wheels his chair over, mom brings the rest, and they set it on the table. We all gather round, one big, mismatched, happy family.

My father, Ethan Pierce, has strawberry blond hair that is slowly thinning, to where he’ll have to start shaving it soon. But, he’s thick and strong. Though he doesn’t feel it right now while he’s stuck in that wheelchair. He’s been building custom homes since long before I was born.

My mom, Gemma Pierce, is beautiful. With blonde hair that toes the line into platinum—and it’s her natural color—blue eyes, petite figure, she’s a bombshell. She’s kind and warm, but is also always worried about what other people think of her outside of the house. But at home, she’s just mom to me and my brother.

Then there’s me. Dark brown hair. Light hazel eyes that I’ve been told more than once look kind of like a cat’s. I’m a little shorter and my lips are fuller and round.

And Eshan. With his lanky build and dark chestnut skin. Big brown eyes and perfectly smooth complexion.

And Eli. Black eyes, black hair, black skin.

None of us are family by blood, but family through the heart.

I was placed in Ethan and Gemma’s home as a three-day-old baby. They’d never been able to have children of their own. And then when I was five, my parents brought Eshan home from Nepal, one year old. And then there was Eli, who didn’t quite fit the role of brother, son, or uncle. But, he found a place, nevertheless.

They all chat and laugh, and normally I’d be laughing the loudest of them all, making some brash joke. But I keep thinking about poor Carolina today and the impossible state she was brought to us in.

“Logan,” Dad says, pausing with his spoon over his bowl. “You’ve been near dead silent all night. What’s wrong?”

I feel all eyes land on me and my face heats. I’ve never been one to hold much back.

“Just work,” I say, shrugging. “There was this poor woman. It was…”

“No gruesome details at the dinner table,” Mom cuts in, her face already turning pale. She’s never handled my chosen profession well.

“It was bad,” I say instead with a nod. “It was just hard, seeing that someone so seemingly normal could be treated so violently.”

No one says anything for a moment, because what is there really to say?

“I can’t even imagine the things you have to deal with sometimes,” Dad says, giving me a sympathetic look.

Dad fell off some scaffolding four months ago. He broke his back.

Broke it.

Somehow, he isn’t paralyzed. He’s just slowly having to relearn how to walk.

But there was a time, when the bills were pilling in, and the money had stopped. And my family needed help.

So, even further into debt with Shylock I went.

And now I get threats, my friends get threats, my family gets threats.

So I get terrifying encounters, making payments so he doesn’t hurt anyone.

I shrug and look over to my brother, who has this little look in his eyes that tells me he wants the gory details of work later.

Eli has something in his eyes too, but I can’t quite peg it down.

The family moves to the living room after dinner and strikes up a game of Mexican Train. I play, though not well.

And Eli sits on the couch, tapping something into his phone and reading. His work spills into personal hours occasionally.

By nine o’clock I’m exhausted from the early start to the day and the emotionally draining work. I say goodnight to my family and Eli and I head outside.

“It must have been pretty awful,” Eli says as we slowly walk down the sidewalk. We pause at the curb, next to our cars. “You’ve dealt with some pretty gruesome stuff, but normally nothing gets to you. Not like this.”

I wrap my arms around myself, even though it isn’t cold. I shake my head as my eyes wander down the street I know so well. “It was awful. I mean, this woman’s head was ripped—and I mean ripped—from her body. It looked like…I don’t know, it’d been clawed off, or chewed on. And every bit of her was bruised and beaten. It was just so…inhumane.”

My eyes drift back to Eli’s. And that darkness that always resides in them, it grows a little more black. A little deeper.

“How long ago was she killed?” he asks. And something in his voice sounds tight.

I slide my hands into my back pockets. “Over two weeks ago. And the family wanted an open casket. I’ve…I’ve never had to do so much work on a body.”

Eli remains quiet, which isn’t unusual. He isn’t the most talkative person. But it feels weighted. Contemplative. I look into his face, trying to decipher what he’s thinking.

And he realizes I’m watching him. He blinks twice, his eyes coming back into focus. “I’m sorry today was so hard for you, Logan. It sounds like you could use some sleep.”

I nod, indeed feeling incredibly tired, like I could sleep from now until noon tomorrow. “Yeah,” I say.

“I’ll meet you at your place tomorrow for our run?” he asks as he backs toward his car.

“See you tomorrow,” I say.

Eli tries to give me a little smile before he slips into his car, but it’s tiny, and absolutely forced. He shuts the car door, starts the engine.

And tears off into the darkening evening, wheels spinning on the concrete.