“Ahem!” someone coughed.
Zig looked up, pulling out his earbuds.
“The family— She has a question for you,” Clifford explained, stepping aside and revealing a woman with chestnut-colored hair that was pulled back in a faultless bun. She was petite, compact, but solid in her shoulders, radiating strength. Definitely military, Zig thought. Lieutenant Colonel Mint’s wife, Tessa.
“We were just hoping . . .” Tessa motioned to the body. “These are— For the coffin,” she said, handing Zig an Adidas sneaker box with no lid. Inside were a few old photos, a worn leather baseball glove, and a single yellow Post-it with a handwritten note that read, “YOU CAN.”
Tessa started to explain, but she didn’t have to. Behind her, frozen in the doorway, were two kids: a lanky seventeen-year-old boy with blond hair like his dad’s and a neck that curved like a comma, and a black-haired girl who was clutching a cell phone with two hands, like she was strangling it. The girl was twelve, with doubting eyes and dark scabs on both her knees and elbows. Zig liked her immediately, especially when he saw what was written on the child-sized baseball glove.
Make sure I win this week, Daddy. Love, Violet.
“If it’s okay, I’d like to see him now,” Mint’s wife said, leaning hard on the word I. She wasn’t letting her children any closer, standing in front of them like a lioness, one arm blocking their way.
“Of course, ma’am, lemme just . . .” Tearing off a strip of gray masking tape, Zig wrapped it around his hand, sticky side out. With a steady, almost reverent stroke, he rolled the tape—which was stronger than any lint brush—from Lieutenant Colonel Mint’s chest down to the white gloves on his hands, which were, as always, positioned left over right, so the wedding hand had prominence.
As the tape kissed the wrist of the colonel’s white gloves, the lip of the right glove lifted, revealing a plastic glove inside—another Dover custom, to keep body fluids from seeping out. Inside that glove, Zig noticed a spot of blood—from three deep scratches on the back of the colonel’s hand.
Zig made a mental note. Bodies get scratched all the time, but in the Dover report that Zig saw, there was no mention of it. To make sure the family didn’t see the blood, Zig quickly readjusted the colonel’s hands—to make sure the left completely covered the right, moving the colonel’s thumb just so.
“He’d appreciate your sense of perfection,” Tessa said. “When he ate, he wouldn’t let any of his food touch each other—even spaghetti and meatballs,” she explained, her voice catching as she laughed and cried in the same breath.
She was strong, trying to use humor as armor. But as Tessa stepped forward to finally see her dead husband up close, well . . . at the real ground zero of it all . . . there’s no protection strong enough.
“I thought he’d— They told me he wouldn’t look this good,” Tessa said, her face lighting up with . . . it could only be described as relief. It’s what military families understood better than anyone: the simultaneous terror and joy that comes from seeing your loved one one last time. “His face . . . they said the bullet . . . He looks beautiful,” she blurted, the tears now rolling down her cheeks. “You got his smile right, too. He was a terrible smiler.” Even the kids started to laugh. “Thank you for this.”
He deserves no less, Zig thought to himself.
“I’m serious,” Tessa added. “What you did was magic.”
“I used to work at Dover, too,” Zig explained. “I appreciate his service there.”
“Who, Archie? Archie was in the reserves. He never worked at Dover,” Tessa said, looking confused. “I think you—”
“Ma’am, we should really get going,” one of the funeral employees—a man with a flat nose—interrupted, cutting in front of Zig.