Luck Read Online Free PDF Page A

of night?
    She knows what Nora means: some known and all unknown locals are suspect. It’s not a nice feeling.
    The voice that answers the phone identifies itself as Hendrik Anderson, whether father or son he doesn’t say. The name is vaguely Scandinavian, and becomes more so when Sophie tells him what they have in mind—what Nora has in mind. The voice takes on what she hears as a northern European formality, not accented but cool, as if it comes from a glacial place where sunlight is rare and barely warming. “It’s … unusual,” this Hendrik Anderson, this undertaker, funeral director, mortician, whatever the hell he’s called, says. “An unusual combination of requests.” Presumably he means it’s rare and, judging from his tone, unrespectable for mourners to desire speed and virtual anonymity in the treatment of loved ones, followed by swift transformation of flesh into ash.
    “But you can do it?”
    “Oh yes, if I get the body today there should be no problem.” Perhaps he thinks it doesn’t matter, since she’s an employee, not family, if he refers to Phil as
the body.
“But sudden death at a fairly young age, you see, there may be questions and, if so, delays.” He might not intend accusation, maybe he’s simply inept. Still, he’s right, who knows, the theory will go, if one of the three witchy women in the house on the hill is a killer? Which of them might draw the short straw in that sort of tale?
    “All I know is that the person who phoned from the hospital suggested they’d likely be finished by mid-afternoon.”
    “Then that’s promising. I can take care of confirming that and, of course, the transportation here from the hospital. You probably know, though, that there’s bureaucracy involved in even the simplest death. Not,” Hendrik Anderson hurries on, “that any death is simple, I didn’t mean that.” This blunder makes him more human, or less northern. It humbles him,and warms him up. Still, you’d think undertakers would know precisely what they mean at all times before they open their mouths, their opportunities for misspeaking being as capacious as they must be. “Beyond the, uh, physical requirements, there are legal ones. Considerable paperwork, plus quite a number of other details we handle.” He sounds as if details are onerous, as if details are not really blessed, life-saving occupation.
    Never mind. The point he is slowly making turns out to be that even in its most pared-down, fast form, the process will cost a shocking amount. Thousands! Not that it’ll be Sophie’s money, but the waste—Phil would surely have been appalled. Sophie is horrified. Living bodies in the place she once struggled were not treated with the hovering luxury with which Phil’s dead one will be.
    Because of Phil’s very high standards for what he created and built, each piece was unique, and because he didn’t take commissions from just anyone, the furniture he made was highly prized. Therefore very expensive. In the economics in which Hendrik Anderson is busy educating Sophie, three of Phil’s funerals might add up to one of Phil’s sofas. That makes better sense.
    “Then I’ll leave it with you,” she says, and, “I’ll be in touch,” he says, and when they hang up, she folds her arms on the desk and puts her head down. There’s no place to run. She can’t go home because this is her home, at least for now; although realistically not for long. She can’t see Nora sticking around without Phil, and even if she did, why would she need or want Sophie?
    Sophie has come a long way in her four years here, but whether it’s far enough to avoid falling back into virtue’s ghastly embrace is as suddenly uncertain as everything else.The whole point of moving here to be Phil and Nora’s resident practical person was to build fortress walls against suffering, but here comes suffering anyway.
    Now what?
    Oh, shit. Max. Poor old guy, waiting for Nora and Phil to show up for lunch.
    When