Read Online Love Letters of the Angels of Death by Jennifer Quist - Free Book Online Page B

ones people only buy from salesmen-relatives who are down on their luck. You’re using it to carve a leg off the chicken carcass. Everything you do in the kitchen looks so easy – the way you separate an egg or roll a meatball onto its raw side without having it crumble into bits in the frying pan. Even this precise mutilation of the chicken – where you take the animal apart as if it was never held together with anything more than tiny, invisible zippers – there’s a kind of perfection to it. It’s gorgeous. And it’d make you even madder than you already are if I mention it.
    But that’s not what I’m thinking as I pull my cell phone out of my pocket to prove you’re wrong about me shutting it off. “See, I didn’t – what? I did not turn it – ah, dang it. I must have forgotten to switch the ringer back on after my morning meeting. Sorry. But having your cell phone ring in the middle of a meeting like that is the worst. It’s like openly passing gas or something.”
    â€œAnyways,” you go on, flipping the chicken over to cut off its wings. “I thought each of your sisters could offer prayers at your memorial service. But I couldn’t decide which one of your cousins I should ask to give the eulogy. I mean, ideally I’d do it myself, but since speaking at your mother’s funeral was almost emotionally impossible for me, I decided I’d better assign it to someone else, right? Someone who’s kind of close but kind of far away at the same time.”
    That’s when I cross the floor to hug you into the crackling down fill and nylon of my winter coat. You’ve still got the knife in your hand but I’ll hold onto you anyway – at least until I feel you starting to straighten and strain away from me.
    â€œBrigs – Brigs, my hands are covered in chicken gunk.”
    When you say it, I can smell it. I let go and you step away to take hold of what’s left of the chicken. There’s a crack as its vertebrae come apart in your bare hands.
    â€œBy the way,” you go on, “you still haven’t given me definitive permission to have all your loveliness cremated. I need something in writing in case anyone tries to get up in my face with their nonsense about ‘desecration.’”
    To the snap and sting of static electricity, I slide my heavy coat off my arms. I’m kicking through the pile of winter boots and coats and mittens strewn in front of the hall closet. The floor is wet with melted snow, soaking through my socks. It looks like the boys came home from school and then just exploded inside the front door.
    â€œOkay, okay. Enough with the funeral planning,” I say. “I made it home just fine.”
    â€œAnd for floral tributes,” you continue as you break through the marrow of the chicken’s sternum with the knife blade, “I guess we’ll go with whatever’s in season – and not too girlie. Only no lilies. Lilies have a terrible smell. There, I said it.”
    I sniff. “You don’t like lilies?”
    â€œHate ’em.”
    I cock my head. “I must not remember what they smell like.”
    â€œWell, it’s one of those pricky smells that gets right up inside your cribriform plate.”
    I snort. “All right. No funeral lilies. How about some fancy orchids then – something to go with the string quartet?”
    â€œYuck, no.”
    â€œCome on. You can’t hate all the over-priced flowers on principle.”
    â€œIt’s got nothing to do with principles. It’s just that orchids–” You pause to roll your eyes at yourself over the dismembered chicken. “I wouldn’t have to explain this to you if you hadn’t been too busy with all that math to ever take a zoology class in university.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYou’ve never dissected a rat, Brigs.”
    I’m shaking my head as you step