“So how did Holly treat you?” Rosemary polished off her hot dog, her eyes bright.
“Before or after the actress from the other town left?”
Rosemary let out a quiet screech. “That awful woman who was in Hello, Dolly last year? What was her name?”
They looked at Casey, and she shrugged. “Have no idea. Nobody bothered to introduce us.”
“No,” Lillian said. “They wouldn’t.”
“About Holly…” Rosemary said.
Casey grimaced. “She was perfectly nice—overly welcoming, even—until the woman left. After that she dropped me like a stone.”
Rosemary humpfed. “That’s just Holly. How Ellen ever put up with her…”
“They were friends?”
“As much as Holly can be friends with anybody. Selfish little brat. She’d call Ellen at all hours, claiming she had a crisis and needed another woman to talk to. Ellen would always agree to see her.” She sighed. “But then, that’s just how Ellen was. She’d invest more time than she should in someone like Holly, just to have it thrown in her face.”
They were quiet for a few moments, watching the fire.
“I’m surprised that other actress even showed up,” Lillian said. “But she probably heard about…” Her voice caught. “…about the open part and came to snag it.”
Casey pulled her hot dog from the fire. “Actually, Thomas called her last week to see if she would come.”
“Last week?” Rosemary’s face went red, visible even in the firelight. “But Ellen only…” She stood up abruptly, her napkin fluttering to the ground, and hustled into the house.
Lillian looked at the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Casey said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s not you. You know that.” She looked up. “You need a bun. Here.” She pulled one from the bag on the neighboring stump. “And toppings. We have the usual—ketchup, mustard—and this wonderful relish we do up every fall. India relish. Red and green tomatoes, red and green peppers, onions… All from our garden.”
“I’ll try some of that. Thank you.”
Lillian’s face was a blank mask as she made up Casey’s hot dog on a bright green partitioned tray. Besides the relish she lined the dog with the ketchup and mustard, and even a few onion strips. With a final twist, she deposited a handful of nacho chips in ones of the compartments.
Casey took the plate from Lillian, but the other woman didn’t seem to hear her thanks.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Lillian said, standing and brushing off her pants. “I’m going to check on Rosemary.”
“Of course.”
Lillian stood with more composure than Rosemary had done, wadding up her own napkin and tossing it into the fire. Left behind, however, were the rest of the supplies.
Casey looked down at her plate, figuring her appetite would be gone. But the hot dog did look good. Smelled good, too. She took a bite, relish and ketchup dripping down her fingers.
It tasted fantastic.
When she was done, her hostesses still hadn’t returned. She considered roasting another hot dog, but contented herself with popping an untoasted marshmallow in her mouth and breaking off a piece of the Hershey’s chocolate.
“You’re not supposed to eat them separately.”
Casey didn’t even need to look back at the food to see who had addressed her. “Well, you go ahead and make your own s’more. I’m not doing it for you.”
Death plopped down on the stump next to her. “And here we were getting along so well.”
Casey shook her head, looking into the flames. “Wouldn’t you be more at home in there?”
“The fire?” Death huffed. “Not all dead people enter eternal flames, Casey. In fact, very few of them do.”
“Is that so?”
“Would I wear flammable clothes otherwise?”
Casey stood and began cleaning up the food, placing the bottles and extra hot dogs in the picnic basket on the ground next to the stump. “Ellen Schneider.”
Death pulled one knee up into clasped hands and rocked back to look at Casey. “What about her?”
“Did she really kill herself? Or are her friends right? Did someone else do it?”
Death didn’t answer for so long Casey thought she was being ignored. “I asked you a question.”
“I heard you, child. But I can’t answer you.”
Casey balanced the marshmallow bag on top of the condiments in the basket and stood over Death. “Can’t, or won’t?”
Death looked up at her. “It’s not that I’m being mysterious. Or even stubborn. I really can’t tell you.”
Casey backed up and sat on Rosemary’s stump, holding the basket on her lap. “But you’re Death.”
“Exactly. I come when the soul is ready to depart. You might not believe me, but even I don’t know exactly when someone’s going to go. Especially when it’s unexpected. When someone is ill and fading away to a certain demise, I get the message to be prepared. I can be present and ready. Even when it’s quick—” Death snapped. “I can be there almost instantaneously. But when it’s a death that wasn’t preceded by illness, and drags on for a bit, well, I get there as fast as I can, but not always fast enough to know what happened, because the soul isn’t ready to go until that last moment, when there’s no hope left.”
“So Ellen—”
“—had some time before I got there. The overdose…it was a mortal one, of course, but it took several minutes to get to that state. Long enough that whoever killed her could get away before her soul was ready to go.” Death held up a hand. “Not that I know there was someone else. But if there was, well, they got lucky.”
“And if she did it herself?”
“I wasn’t there to see. But that kind of death…I can imagine a woman doing it to herself. But forcing someone to overdose…well, that’s extremely rare, and hard to do.”
“I guess you would know.”
“Yes.” Death’s voice was gentle.
The silence of the night, punctuated by crackles from the fire, covered them, and Casey looked at her hands. “Were you there?”
Death didn’t pretend not to understand. “Almost immediately. When it happens so fast…”
The crash, the rush of the airbags, stumbling out of the car to get Omar from the back seat, the exploding flames, the flying door carrying her back, away from her family…
“Did they suffer?” Her voice was husky. “I remember… I remember the screams…”
Death leaned over, placing one hand on Casey’s knee, the other under her chin, forcing her to look up. “It’s over now, Casey. They’re at peace.”
“But then? Did they suffer then?”
Death studied her face. “You really want to know?”
Her chest constricted. “I have to.”
Death took a breath, looking upward, then finally turned back to Casey, cupping her cheek with gentle fingers. “It was a short time, Casey. Very brief. They felt panic, disbelief, shock of pain. But then it was over. It’s still over. They’ll never feel pain again.”
Casey’s eyes blurred and she gripped Death’s fingers, cold on her cheek. “Then why? Why couldn’t you take me, too? Why leave me to…” She pulled away and staggered up from the stump, her hand waving wildly above her head as the picnic basket crashed to the ground, scattering food and plates. “To this?”
Death looked around at the campfire, the trees, the food. The locusts sang above them, and the flames popped, sending up gusts of white smoke. “This isn’t hell, Casey, honey, no matter what you may think. Someday perhaps you’ll see.”
Death stood and Casey lunged forward, falling, latching onto Death’s wrist. “Take me. Please take me. You know where they are.”
Death looked down at Casey, who trembled, her knees in the dirt, smudged tears lining her cheeks, dotting her shirt. Death knelt in front of her, gently extricating her fingers and pulling her close, patting her back. “Hush, daughter. Listen. Listen to the night. Quiet now.”
And shielded in Death’s embrace, Casey’s tears slowed, until all she could feel was the cover of the darkness.