The Vision Read Online Free PDF Page A

fridge, unopened. Unless Ryan was on.
    â€œI guess I’ll go in the back to study,” I told him after emptying the last box of eye caps.
    Ryan nodded, continuing to work with just a glance up at me.
    On my way to the break room, I saw mourners being escorted to the chapel by Mr. Wilton, Ryan’s dad. There were four different ways to access the chapel, the large room where wakes were held. It was something Mr. Ludwig was especially proud of. He’d overseen the conversion of this turn-of-the-century mansion to a state-of-the-art funeral home and had soundproof walls, soft-close doors, propping mechanisms, and multiple access points built in to eliminate distraction, his pet peeve. He’d shown me everything on my first-day tour.
    â€œIt’s like being a magician,” Ryan said when Mr. Ludwig stepped away to take a call. He’d been working in the office, its door open to the front hall. “No one wants to see the mechanics behind the tricks.”
    The break room, however, does not open to the chapel. It’s stuffy and windowless with a beat-up table, six plastic chairs, and magazines like Undertaking Today and Next Steps, The Funeral Journey . I forced myself to sit there for fifteen minutes, looking at my school books without absorbing a thing, fidgety to get back to the action. When I was sure Ryan wasn’t coming to check on me, I peeked out the opposite-side door. The back hallway was empty.
    I crossed quickly and slipped into the prep room, cringing. You never knew what you’d find there. It’s where all the gruesome work was done, and bodies stayed on the steel table for at least a day after embalming to be sure everything went right. Wouldn’t want to dress them and then find out something leaked. Thankfully, there was no one—dead or alive—in the prep room now and any bodies picked up today wouldn’t be brought in until we were ready to embalm. There was a refrigerated area downstairs where they could chill out. Mr. Ludwig’s joke, not mine.
    My sneakers squee-squeed across the waxed linoleum to the hallway that connected the prep room and chapel, the path bodies took for their final farewell. I walked it quickly, stopping by the door, which was propped slightly open by a clip at the top. Another of Mr. Ludwig’s illusions, preventing it from “clicking” closed if he needed to come in or out.
    I leaned in close, hoping he was nowhere around. He’d freak if he found me eavesdropping like this.
    â€œâ€¦ right in the middle of a luncheon. They called an ambulance, but I guess it was too late.”
    â€œHow awful,” a woman murmured.
    Not family members. They don’t discuss details at the wake. I stifled a sigh, knowing “he’s in a better place now” or “at least he didn’t suffer” would come next. I kept hoping for something meaningful, but had started to wonder if wake talk ever progressed beyond platitudes. They were part of the ritual, I supposed, like washing the body or saying prayers or old ladies wearing veils, things that happened at just about every viewing we’d done at Ludwig & Wilton, all of them so similar.
    I’d thought working here could help me piece together some cohesive understanding of what people believe about death, but it turned out almost all our clients were Catholic and Christian. Hindus cremate, Jews bury the body first, visit afterward, and so on. Those who don’t embalm rarely come to places like Ludwig & Wilton, so I only saw one small slice of belief and practice.
    Thankfully, Mr. Ludwig knew a ton about religion and mortuary history and liked to talk while he worked. Over body Number Two, he told me that families used to prep the deceased and hold the wake at home. They’d open a window so the soul could leave the room, then close it after two hours in case the soul changed its mind. Clocks would be stopped, mirrors covered, but the rituals of