A short look inside

Frankie arrived at the crematorium thirteen minutes early, which was thirteen minutes more considerate than the deceased had been. The chapel held forty seats; twenty-six were taken. The widow was not in the front row. The widow was not anywhere Frankie could see her. The widow's sister was, however, sitting exactly where the widow was supposed to be, which meant either the widow had decided not to come or had decided to let her sister carry the visible grief so she could carry it privately, which, in Frankie's professional experience, was the more expensive option.

Frankie sat in the third row, behind a man wearing a tie that was honest about not being able to do its job. She tucked her face into something credible. She synchronized her breath to a tempo that had worked at the last three bookings. She thought about a list she had been keeping for years of the moment in each service when the room, against its own stated intentions, became sincere. It was always the same moment, and it was always near the second hymn. By the second hymn, the people who had come to be seen had been seen, and the people who had come to be polite had worn themselves out, and the people who had come for the deceased — and these were always, in Frankie's bookkeeping, the smallest category, and the ones who stayed the longest — were alone in their seats with whoever they had actually come for.

She could feel that moment coming. She always could.