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Chapter 1The mass of black that surrounded Emily surprised and gladdened her heart. It seemed as if the entire town had gathered around her father's, Edshar's, long walnut casket to bid him farewell. The casket rested quietly next to the rectangular hole on two milled tree stubs no higher than her knees. A framed portrait of her father sat on the grass, leaning against the foot of the box so that it caught the sun and reflected a big white spot, erasing his face. That morning, after she had finally finished preparing him and as her father lay in his coffin in the cellar, Emily had an artist paint the portrait. It was a dignified and colorless portrait, the only hint of color coming from the brown suit coat he wore. Although it looked like him, his expression was grim, as the artist had, for some reason, brought her father's two white bushy eyebrows together at a downward angle above his nose. Emily had no idea what she would do with it after the burial.
It was much too hot a day for a funeral and the late July rains they'd had in Burkesville made it unbearably humid, especially at night. In fact, Emily blamed the heat for her father's heart attack. As she watched her mother quietly weeping into a white handkerchief, Emily remembered how she'd come running into her room the morning before, hysterical and in obvious agony. Emily followed her into their room and found her father lying still on the floor, face up and eyes opened. She ran to get Doctor Rilly. He examined her father and pronounced him deceased. As she prepared his body in the cellar that night, still numb from his sudden passing, Emily thought it ironic that he ended up being one of his owncustomers so soon. He'd just turned fifty. Even morticians had to die, he'd always joked to her and her mother. They never thought it was funny.
She thought him so dear that she took it upon herself to learn the skills so she could be near him. He taught her everything about death. That it wasn't an ending, but a beginning. That the reason people wore black at funerals was that it made it hard for the spirits to find the living. That the dead should be buried with something they loved in life so they didn't come looking for it. In her father's case, it was his Bible.
When they bought the house in Burkesville, they converted the bottom half of it into a funeral home, the first one in Kentucky. The cellar was where they prepared the bodies and the parlor, decorated with green curtains and twenty wooden chairs was where the wakes were held. They filled in the death certificates, arranged the showings and burials and comforted the grieving family. It was all so new to people used to just placing their loved ones in a box, saying words over it, then burying it. Father thought it a good Christian way to spread the word of God. That was five years ago. Now the pomatum that held all the make-up, scalpels, and perfumes was now hers. She remembered how, under the flickering light of a single candle in the cellar, she brushed toner on his cheeks but the humidity caused the toner to congeal and she couldn't blend it into his skin properly. It looked as if he'd been slapped in the face and nothing she did fixed it. But she knew he'd know what to do. Emily broke down and wept, pressing her ear down onto his chest and willing his heart to beat again. She cried so hard that she stained his shirt dark with tears. She realized at that moment that she couldn't do it anymore without him; she was a retired mortician at the age of eighteen.
It was good of Nathan March to come to her father's funeral, Emily thought. He stood patiently in back of her mother and Amanda Sallybanks, Emily's best friend. Tall and dark in his black suit, he was the only man there who had the good manners to be holding his hat and not wearing it, even though the sun beat down on his skin like a hammer. His thick black hair was combed straight back and held into place with an oily substance that shone like the Cumberland River did at night as it caught the reflection of the moon upon its surface. He had a long face and a long nose and underneath was a thick black mustache with ends so sharp they looked dangerous. He was a man of high character and at times she was flattered at the attention he lavished on her. But now it was different. She could feel his brown, staring eyes burning her skin like the piercing of tiny arrowheads. He'd come all the way from his tobacco plantation in Marrowbone in a new cabriolet and he'd known her only a month. The day they'd met, he'd come into town on business and had seen her as she and Amanda, in their Sunday finest, were at the train station waiting for Wesley Braxton to arrive back from another one of his restless adventures. Nathan introduced himself, commented on how beautifully red Emily's hair was, and invited the two ladies to lunch with him. They declined but when Wesley didn't get off the next train, they decided to accept Mr. March's invitation after all. They lunched at the inn next to the station and it was soon clear what Mr. March's intentions were concerning Emily, but she didn't pay them much thought at the time. He was twenty-nine, a full twelve years older than her and Wesley filled her mind and heart completely.
