“I hate when we get clients who I know really well. Delia was such a sweetie. We’re all going to miss her.”
Then she stepped out of the hug and slid back into her professional self.
We were so used to seeing Fern around town in her brightly colored tees and tanks spattered with flowers and chunky plastic jewelry that I marveled at how official she appeared in her work clothes, a dark gray skirt, black shell with matching sweater and low-heeled black pumps. I took a closer look and realized she did indeed have panty hose on, an item I’d not worn more than half a dozen times since we’d moved to Fort Myers Beach. Decorum or no decorum, I couldn’t imagine having to wear them every day.
When I handed her the locket, she held it in her palm and examined it thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Delia wear this, and you say Augusta wants it buried with her? That’s odd.”
“Not really. Augusta said Delia always wore it on special dress-up occasions. Delia kept it pinned to her bra on ordinary days, which even Augusta didn’t know. The medical examiner found it.” I pointed to the clasp. “Open it.”
As soon as she saw the picture Fern smiled. “A long-lost love. I wonder who he is.”
My eyebrows shot up to the ceiling. Bridgy laughed out loud. Fern was as sure as Ophie was that the man in the fedora had once been Delia’s lover. Of course Augusta’s tale of the mystery man had us inclined to believe they were right. Still, I asked, “Why a lover, why not her father or maybe a brother?”
Fern gave us a “don’t question my wisdom on this” look, followed by a conciliatory smile. “We deal with bereavement all day, every day. However people spend their lives, they want to spend eternity with whatever they cherish most, be it a wedding ring, a favorite book, an algebra medal from sixty years ago, their childhood pet’s favorite toy. You wouldn’t believe the variety. But when it comes to pictures . . .”
Fern lowered her voice. We leaned across the desktop, anxious to hear her expert opinion.
“Speaking hypothetically, let’s say someone dies.”
She stopped. It took a minute for me to realize she needed us to accept that whatever she said was no more than a theory.
“Hypothetically, of course.” I nodded in agreement.
Satisfied, Fern continued to whisper. “By all accounts the deceased has had a happy and fulfilling marriage for decades and decades. Yet after the family comes in to make the final arrangements, a longtime friend will show up with a picture of an old flame and beg us to place it in the coffin. Sometimes they even have a note from the deceased, expressing that wish.”
Fern raised her voice back to a conversational tone.
“It used to bother me, fooling the family like that, but the older I get, the more I realize how complicated life is. Why should death be any less so?”
She snapped the locket shut and looked at the swamp lily etching. “A true barrier island memento. Well, that alone would make it worth burying with Delia. The old-time lover is a glorious bonus. I wonder why they never married. Do you think he died in a war?”
The story of Delia and the man pictured in the locket wasn’t mine to tell, so I shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know.”
Fern signaled it was time for us to let her get back to work by standing up, her chair once again hitting the wall. In the midst of another group hug, we agreed that we’d all be at the service in Pastor John’s church the next morning.
As she opened her office door, Fern said, “I imagine a lot of Delia’s friends are upset that there isn’t going to be a viewing. Even that scruffy looking handyman, you know the one with the skull in his bag, came in to check on viewing times. Wouldn’t believe it when Roy at the door told him there wasn’t any. I had to go out and tell him that it was quite true. Church service. Burial. That’s it.”