Dead Wrong by Betta Ferrendelli

Author:Betta Ferrendelli [Ferrendelli, Betta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-one

The first thing Helen heard when she entered the small, windowless room was Ralph rattling off a string of profanities so vile, she wondered why his tongue didn’t fall out of his mouth.

Helen had been back only a day from her time off and Ralph had been in a sour mood since her return. Ralph and the Bag Man were talking and she knew enough to keep her own mouth shut.

Ralph’s foul mouth had never bothered Helen much, or so she thought. She could remember him talking this way from the first time they met. She had always been able to tune him out. However, she wasn’t sure why in the last several weeks—no, now she was certain it had been longer—perhaps months, or even the past year, his despicable language had just about chewed away her nerves.

Helen had never spoken in such a way. Not even in her worst moments did she ever use such disgusting language. Not even when she stubbed her toe on the bedpost in the middle of the night when she got up to go to the bathroom, not even the day she cut her finger so badly dicing vegetables and needed stitches—not even when she learned her first husband was sleeping with their next-door neighbor.

She believed she was growing more intolerant of Ralph’s nasty mouth because of her sister’s illness. Helen and Mary-Louise had been close as sisters, so close they might have been twins. Mary-Louise was younger by a half-dozen years, and where Helen looked every bit of her 40-plus years, Mary-Louise was the proverbial picture of health. If Helen was round like a tomato, Mary-Louise was as thin as a stick of celery. She stayed away from processed foods, ate only organic and exercised to the point of obsession.

And Mary-Louise had only a few months to live.

Every time her sister’s passing came to mind, Helen couldn’t help thinking about what could happen if Mary-Louise lived and died in Denver and was brought to one of the mortuaries under the Daniels Dignity umbrella. Helen doubted she would be able to complete her own role in finding buyers for Mary-Louise’s bones, organs and tissues. It was impossible for her to imagine having to do this job for her younger sister. In fact, one evening after talking with Mary-Louise on the phone, Helen was so upset at the thought of her only sister dying so young that she violently threw up all over her living room rug.

Helen’s only solace was that, thankfully, Mary-Louise lived on the West Coast. That, however, didn’t protect the other unfortunate souls who would be at the mercy of Daniels Dignity LLC.

Helen was surprised—and ashamed—that it took the prospect of her sister’s death to make her realize the full scope of what she had been doing the last decade of her life in this ridiculously small, dimly lit room. She had always said it wasn’t about the money, but of course, she knew it was. She had made a small mint over the last 10 years.

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