Twist

Sadie stamped snow from her shoes and entered the back door of the funeral home. She passed the crematorium, the morgue, and the casket display room. Ignoring the acrid odor of embalming fluid, she eyed the steep steps to the first floor and decided to take the elevator. After 40 years as secretary-receptionist at Courtland Funeral Home, she shou

ld be used to the place, but she felt jittery; she seldom returned so late at night.

Being here now was her own fault. Leaving the elevator, she entered her office at the top of the steps and jotted a note on a memo pad. Had she remembered to place the address where Sam Jackson's services were to be held the next day on his casket where the hearse driver expected to find them, she would have been home now watching TV. She walked past the front reception desk and into the chapel. Poor Sam. His wife was one of the unlucky victims Sid had pressured into buying his most expensive casket. How unfair. That hadn't been old Mr. Courtland's way.

After taping the address to the casket, Sadie was heading toward the elevator when the front door opened and she heard Ruth and Sid's angry voices. Their arguments had grown more frequent recently, and now she debated on coughing to announce her presence or momentarily hiding in her closet to save everyone embarrassment.