The Death Class by Erika Hayasaki

Author:Erika Hayasaki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CLASS FIELD TRIP: McCracken Funeral Home

TAKE-HOME WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Funeral Homes

After speaking to funeral home directors and embalmers, write a reaction paper about your visit.

NINE

Brothers

November 2008

After the hospital released his brother, Jonathan had no time to worry about his breakup with Caitlin. He didn’t know how often she had been turning to Norma at all hours in tears, coping with her mother’s suicide attempts. Jonathan was too busy making sure Josh took his daily pill. His brother seemed to be getting better; he was brushing his teeth again and taking showers. Jonathan figured they needed a break from New Jersey. Josh had seemed sane enough lately, so Jonathan booked them a flight to Uruguay to see their grandmother. It would be good for Josh to hang out on the beach and relax as they’d used to when they were kids.

The white sand, the clear water, and Grandma’s cooking seemed to do the trick at first. Josh seemed happy in Uruguay, almost his old self again. He even put on deodorant and a nice outfit and told Jonathan, “I want to go out.”

“Okay,” Jonathan replied. They spent the night out at the bars and dance clubs, like two college-age guys with no worries in the world.

But by the time they had been in Uruguay for nearly a month, with their trip almost over, Josh began complaining that he wasn’t feeling well.

One morning, Jonathan gave Josh his pill. But he could tell his brother had hidden it in his cheek, then gone to the bathroom and flushed it. Jonathan confronted him.

“You don’t understand how the medicine makes me feel,” Josh told him. “I’m having suicidal thoughts. I’m having thoughts of killing you when we’re sitting at the dinner table and I have a knife in my hand. I feel like stabbing you.”

“Okay,” Jonathan said calmly. “Well, you didn’t stab me. Maybe if you were not on the medication you would have stabbed me. Let’s worry about it when we get back. We’ll set up an emergency appointment with the psychiatrist.”

ONCE, WHEN JONATHAN was fifteen, he was running along a beach in Uruguay when he noticed a pack of six dolphins swimming and playing together. Jonathan ran alongside them for a while and then glided straight into the water, where he swam next to the dolphins as if he were a part of their family. They were enormous, and he was so close to them, he even touched their skin. Jonathan was exhilarated and thrilled but not the least bit scared.

When Jonathan was a little boy, watching his father stab his mother as his brothers slept, he didn’t feel fear—confusion and anger, maybe, but not fear. Even when the car crashed into the bridge and they hauled his dad off to jail, he was not afraid. Jonathan just figured out what needed to be done next, and did it.

He had never felt real fear—until now.

He knew Josh was capable of killing him. He had even come to expect that his brother would do it eventually.

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