Northern_Lights_2019

38 Good Mourning by Karlie Spiry The summer heat made the grass stick to the back of Nina’s thighs as she sat cross-legged in front of the tombstone. Summer break was almost over, and the August sun bore down relentlessly on the open meadow of the cemetery. The stone planted in front of her was slate gray and smooth to the touch as she traced the etched letters. The grave had belonged to Hector Ramirez, a devoted father and loving husband—or so the stone said. His wife’s name, Gloria, was etched into the stone right beside his, but she had not passed on like her husband had. Nina had made sure to check the newspapers every week to see if her obituary was in the press. She would have to find a new place to sit once Hector’s wife passed on; he wouldn’t be needing anyone to sit with him like Nina had done every day for the last three months. The first time she had come to his grave, it was late morning and she had found a younger looking version of Hector sitting against the stone, his eyes red and a bottle of liquor grasped in his hand. Nina said nothing at first, thinking he would just leave, but he sat there and stared at her in uncomfortable silence. “Are you the angel of death?” he finally asked. There was a slight drag to the sound of his words. She didn’t answer right away, still wary of the strange man in her space. She was not the angel of death, but a girl coming to visit the dead. “No, I’m Nina,” she said. “Who are you?” He didn’t say anything as he stared at her oddly, cocking his head to the side. The angle he sat at made him look like one of those juxtaposed paintings from the Impressionists. For a moment, his neck disappeared under his chin, and his head sat directly where his heart would be. The man barked out a scratchy laugh that made Nina’s jaw clench at the sudden sound. “I must be dead,” he laughed to himself again, only it seemed more of a private laughter to himself, like Nina was humoring him. “No, I don’t think so. At least not yet anyways.” He barked out another gravelly laugh, and Nina began to feel impatient. She had plans to introduce herself to the man sitting six feet below this one, and he was wasting her time. “My name is Ali. Alejandro Ramirez. Hector is my— was my father.” Tones of newfound bitterness lingered in his speech. “I’m supposed to introduce myself to him today,” Nina said with a small smile spreading across her face. Ali looked at the girl with a creased brow enhancing the deep set of wrinkles on his tanned forehead. “I keep the lonely dead company while they wait for their loved ones to join them.” The June bugs hummed loudly as Ali looked at the girl. He had lifted his head and stared at her again, his dark eyes settling on the curl of her brown hair and the white of her dress. He gripped the bottle tighter in his hand before taking another swig from it. “You are the angel of death, girl. Why are you here?” Ali sat up from the headstone and ran a hand through his slick, black hair. “Have you come to kill me?” Nina shook her head no. The fact that he went on about her being this angel of death was absurd: Nina was Nina, and her job was to keep the dead company. “Then what? Come to tell me to go sober? Stop the drinking and restart my life? Well, you have another thing coming because it is not that easy.” He stumbled as he stood up. The dust from the freshly turned grave made his jeans dirty. He was probably thirty years older than Nina, at least in his early forties, and his dark eyes were aged with emotion. Hard from years of suffering, yet fragile from the sadness spinning around inside of him. “I’m here to sit and talk with Hector. That’s all.” Nina felt uneasy now that they were both standing, but she was not going to be intimidated out of doing her job. Hector needed the company, and his son was being awful at his father’s expense. “Why?” Ali smashed the bottle of booze against his father’s headstone, scattering shards of glass everywhere. Nina let out a yelp, “Are you crazy?” Her fingers were twitching out of fear and she quickly tightened them into fists.