Her Last Farewell

Eleanor hated funeral homes. Lonely, loathsome places, in her opinion. She hated the way those places made her feel. The way she shrank under the stern gaze of looming windows. The stale perfume of wilting roses and carnations thickening the chilly parlor air. The hollowing of her stomach every time she approached a casket, that final “good-bye” stuck in her throat like a knot of spiders. And the heavy dread that lurked in the shadowy corners of the overcrowded rooms, a sinister reminder of the inevitable. Eleanor had bid farewell to most of her family, friends, and even a few strangers in rooms not unlike the one in which she now found herself. The furniture, the wallpaper, the flowers, the murmuring crowd, all identical from one to the next. Even the corpses had begun to blur together into the same ambiguous visage. Except for this one. The body that now lay stiffly reposed in the silk-lined coffin was more familiar to her than her own reflection. She had spent sixty-seven years memorizing every angle and curve and twinkling aspect of the man that rested before her. The once brilliant smile of vitality and mischief now winced under permanently closed eyes, and the knotted hands closed over the sunken chest cavity belied their former gentle strength, now a mere gnarl of skin and bone. Her darling Theo. His was the only familiar face to her in the parlor. His, and the woman’s.

The woman watched Eleanor from her seat by the shadowed hearth at the back of the receiving room. No, studied. She studied Eleanor, like a sculptor studies a block of marble, envisioning the masterpiece within. Or like a carnivorous beast stalking its quarry. Every quavering movement, each shallow, tear-stained breath. Her pale green eyes, never blinking, focused with gentle intensity upon the old woman welcoming each mourner in their turn as they approached the coffin. The other guests, once they noticed her, tried not to stand too close to the woman. Something about her unblinking gaze and statuesque posture unnerved them. But Eleanor had noticed the woman almost instantly, even before she had fully entered the room. Rather, Eleanor had felt the woman’s presence, allowing a brief glance to the doorway as the woman glided into view. The murmuring of the crowd hushed in nearly the same instant, for as the woman’s foot touched the carpet of the parlor, a heavy, sharp “tock” echoed from the large mantelpiece clock. Eleanor watched the woman cross to the back of the room, each step in perfect, slowly deliberate rhythm with the clock’s mechanical pulse. She inclined her silvered head in half-remembered recognition.

Eleanor’s penciled brows furrowed as she scrutinized the long features of the woman’s face: milky-smooth skin, taut across high, sharp cheeks, full lips stained deep crimson, gently sloping nose reminiscent of a Greek deity, and dark, elegantly-angled brows arching over orbs of blanched sage .

“I know those eyes,” she thought to herself.

And the woman’s head dipped in affirmation, a slight smirk lifting the edges of her bloodish mouth as she continued her path through the crowd toward the fireplace. Eleanor turned quickly back to the line of guests, her head swimming in a sea of confusion.

The woman, meanwhile, had seated herself in one of a pair of tall wing-backed chairs, a teacup held lightly in her long fingers, though she had not once sipped its contents since the pretty, young hostess had brought the cup. Instead, her fingers played with a curious pendant that hung from a golden chain about the woman’s long neck. Engraved upon its filigreed surface was an elegant letter “T”. The woman smiled at the passing memory of a seven-year-old Eleanor in a parlor much like this one, tracing an inquisitive finger over the lines.

“What does your necklace mean?” the small voice asked.

“It’s the letter of my name,” she replied.

“What IS your name? I don’t remember hearing it.”

“Theda,” she laughed at the child’s look of skepticism.

“That’s an odd name. Where are you from? You do not sound like you are from here.”

The woman smiled, a far away look in her pale eyes. How to answer this precocious little one. The truth was too difficult, too cluttered.

“I am from a very distant land, my dear. Far across the ocean where the heavens meet the earth.”

The clock pulled her back into the present, and she looked once more to the time-worn face she had known all those years ago. The waves of guests occupying Eleanor’s attention did not phase the woman. Nor did the intrusive, incessant ticking of the clock; time was her oldest friend. She could wait. The line gradually dwindled to only a few remaining guests, and once the last person had scuttled past the fireplace toward the refreshment table, the woman locked eyes once more with the weary Eleanor and beckoned her over to the remaining seat. Eleanor, still working to recall why the woman was so familiar to her, lowered herself creakily into the plush embrace of the chair and the woman waved a lithe hand in the direction of the hostess, who bustled over and placed a second steaming teacup on the table between the chairs. The woman took the little piece of chipped china and turned to Eleanor. As she placed it in the withered hands that gratefully wrapped around its warmth, the tip of the woman’s long index finger brushed against the back of Eleanor’s papery wrist. Eleanor’s eyes flashed up to face the woman fully, racing over her every feature. The door in her mind that had seemed fast shut flung wide and Eleanor was drawn into memories of the distant past. She was seven years old standing with her brother at their father’s side, staring down at the cold shell that was once mother; now she was fourteen and her brother stood behind her as she looked upon the stiff face of father; now she was seventeen standing alone above the corpse of her brother. Scenes of parlors and floral cascades and cadavers on display whirred past her mind’s eye, the throngs of faceless mourners marching past in lockstep, but always at the center of this drab parade of long-forgotten grief was the woman; a gentle smile for a motherless child, a soft touch for a lonely young girl, a comforting embrace for a grieving woman. And always a single amaranthine calla lily. The woman remained unchanged by time’s cruel trick. And here she was again, no longer a memory.

The teacup fell to the carpet with a soft clink as Eleanor jerked her hand away, frozen on the edge of the chair. The place where the woman’s finger had brushed her skin burned cold. Her gaze fell upon the pendant, and she reached out a quivering hand to trace the scrolled lines of the letter “T”, as unchanged by time as the woman whose neck it adorned. Theda. The woman lowered her eyes so as to not meet the shocked pain that had filled Eleanor’s face. She had not expected the pang of despair that now surged through her chest. Afterall, she had witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, had endured the grief of countless wars, had walked the silent corridors of death camps. Why was this one human of any significance to her?

Tick! The clock echoed over the muted drawl of mundane chatter, deafening and definitive.

The woman turned back to the trembling Eleanor and placed a long white hand on her knee. Eleanor shuddered at the icy touch, but she did not try to pull away this time. Her tear-rimmed eyes moved over the ageless face before her, and a long-forgotten peace swept over her. She seemed to relax back into the chair’s embrace once more, never taking her eyes from the woman. Theda. Her Theda. She let her own warm hand rest on the woman’s.

Tock! Eleanor glanced up to the clock. Whether it was a trick of the firelight or the exhaustion that was beginning to set in, the clock seemed to grow where it sat on the polished mantle, looming into a sinister shadow that vibrated the very air in the room. But strangely enough, the remaining guests did not seem to notice the change. When she looked back to where the woman sat, Eleanor saw that she now held a long-stemmed calla lily, stained a deep purple-red. The catch of her breath came out in a half-sob and she gazed over to the coffin where her Theo slept.

Tick!

The woman’s fingers pressed firmly into the tender flesh of Eleanor’s thigh.

Tock!

The woman closed her eyes and drew a deep breath as she watched a silver tear trail down the soft cheek of her Eleanor.

Tick!

Eleanor felt the knot thickening in her throat. How could she bring herself to say good-bye to Theo? She felt she would choke on the words.

Tock!

The woman released the breath she had been holding and rose to her feet. There were only two or three small clusters of guests lingering near the coffin.

Tick!

She stepped behind the chair in which Eleanor sat.

Tock!

The woman reached a long, slender arm around Eleanor’s chest and pulled her back into an embrace.

Tick!

The woman let the calla lily fall into Eleanor’s lap and watched as a withered hand closed around the stem.

Tock!

The woman leaned down and placed a gentle kiss upon Eleanor’s temple.

Tick.

No one noticed the woman slip silently through the room, past the coffin, and out the double oak door of the funeral parlor.

Tock.

The mortician’s young assistant discovered Eleanor hours after the last guest had departed and he made his way into the receiving room to nail the lid onto the coffin. He would not have noticed her but for the ruddy glow of the dying embers casting spectral shadows across her withered face. He thought that the elderly woman had simply fallen asleep, still sitting in the velvet wing-backed chair beside the hearth, papery eyelids closed against the exhaustion of the day. But when he moved to rouse her, even his apprenticed hand knew that she would not wake. Her body had grown cold, though the roses had not yet wilted from her cheeks, and her gnarled fingers wrapped stiffly around the green stem of an amaranthine calla lily. As the young man leaned closer, he saw, faint against the wrinkled temple, the perfect outline of a kiss.