The Night Our Love Died

New Job

My new job was cleaning up places where people had died alone, taken their own lives, or been left undiscovered for days until their bodies began to rot.

The owner was blind in one eye. One look at my hands, and he knew they were built for writing. The household chores had roughened them up, but not rough enough to look like those who'd gone through manual labor.

"This job's filthy. It reeks, and you'll be dealing with the dead. Sure, you can do this, girl?"

I said nothing.

I put on my gloves, stepped into the room where a body had been lying, and without hesitation shoved a comforter crawling with maggots into a disposal bag.

The owner hired me on the spot.

It was a buried history, but I was the law school's most brilliant student five years ago. My mentor once told me, "You're born to uphold justice, Natalie. You'll be the best judge we've ever seen!"

And now I was cleaning up the mess the dead had left behind. Still, the stench of rotting corpses felt more tangible than the resplendent but ultimately cold mansion Christopher called home.

…

Five days had gone by.

That afternoon, my coworkers and I were cleaning up after a suicide in a rundown apartment when a familiar voice drifted down the corridor.

"My God, the stench is unbearable! How can anyone live here, Christopher?"

I would have recognized that sugary, cloying voice anywhere. I was carrying a bucket of blackened wastewater out of the apartment when I ran straight into Rachel.

She was pinching her nose in disgust, and Christopher stood behind her.

He was dressed in a perfectly tailored tuxedo, so polished and expensive that he looked completely out of place in that broken-down apartment building.

The moment he saw me, shock flashed across his face. Rage replaced it soon enough. I was in a white and bloated protective suit covered in brown stains. The dead's bathwater was in my hands.

"Natalie!" Christopher strode up to me and grabbed my wrist. "Have you lost your mind? You'd rather throw away your place as my wife and come work in this filthy dump? How much lower are you planning to sink? Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is for me?"

The waste water sloshed around in the bucket, and droplets splashed onto his leather shoes.

Rachel let out a yelp and jumped away. "This is revolting! I can't believe this is your job now! Are you doing this on purpose? For Christopher?"

I looked at Christopher calmly and pulled back my arm with all my strength. "Don't get too comfortable with me, Mr. Lutherson. I'm working."

"What?" Christopher pointed at the reeking room, his whole body trembling with rage. "You call this work? Even if your cards are frozen, this isn't decent work! It's filthy and vile! You're coming home with me!"

"You think it's vile?" I took my mask off. There was no makeup on my face. "The smell isn't the best, Christopher, but it's miles better than the stench scum like you give off! I'd call this heaven!"

That stunned him.

The old Natalie had only ever loved him and doubted herself. Even when I was hurt, there had never been much hatred in me. But now, whatever he saw in my eyes made him falter.

"Very well." Christopher laughed mirthlessly. He called the warden of the west side's prison right away and turned on speakerphone, but before he spoke to the warden, he warned me coldly, "You have a lot of pride, Natalie, but let's see how it holds up when your father's very life is on the line! I'll move him into high-security and have the residents… give him a good welcome."

The call went through. "Mr. Lutherson, what is it?"

Christopher never took his eyes off me. He was waiting—waiting for fear, for panic, for pleading.

In a calm, icy voice, he said, "Mr. Westfield, I need your assistance. You have an inmate named Harold Shayman—"

The warden interrupted Christopher, "But Mr. Lutherson…"

"What is it?" Christopher frowned.

When the warden spoke again, his voice trembled, as though he could not understand how Christopher had not already heard. "Has no one informed you, Mr. Lutherson?"

"Informed me of what?"

"Hector Shayman took his own life seven days ago."