Page 49 of Meet Me After Life

‘Right.’

‘Really, it’s not,’ he insists. ‘It’s for my girlfriend.’

‘Okay.’

He lets Helen pass us in her wheelchair before he takes a steadying breath and mumbles something I can’t hear.

‘What?’

He huffs and raises his voice the slightest increment. ‘Smut. I’m looking for smut.’

‘Oh, smut!’ I say, louder than he would like.

His eyes dart towards Helen who is looking at him like she’d like to be the one showing him her smut collection. I raise my brows. When she sees she’s caught out, she quickly rolls away in a huff.

‘I am aware that there are other patrons around.’

‘I’m sure they can handle hearing a few slutty recommendations. What are you into?’

‘I’m not⁠—’

‘Right, your girlfriend,’ I say with an exaggerated wink. ‘What’s your girlfriend into?’

The charade continues. ‘I don’t know, she won’t tell me what it is she likes. I think she’s embarrassed.’

‘Is she? Is she really?’ My eyebrows raise.

‘Yes!’

Ugh. Okay. Whatever.

I list a few tropes and we pause on⁠—

‘Hockey? There’s really enough hockey smut for it to have its own division.’

‘Oh, heck yeah. We don’t even have everything. I mean, we’ve got smut, but if you’re looking for smut smut, you gotta go online.’

‘No. No, we live with her parents, we couldn’t have it delivered. That’s okay. This will do.’ He hides the raunchy book cover with his palm until I scan it and hand it back. Gopher Boy gives me a tight smile and tucks tail.

‘Miller,’ Aggy greets me, standing by the counter wringing her hands.

I smile with all my teeth. And walk around the counter. ‘What do you need, my darling?’

‘I just need your eyes. I’ve been staring at the screen so long it’s beginning to look a bit like alphabet soup.’

‘Ah.’ Knowingly, I nod. ‘What am I looking over?’

‘Just the typesetting.’

Aggy leads me up the stairs to the computer room. I sit and read through the poem, and although it hurts, I love Aggy’s writing. It’s bitter and sad and not at all how I see her. Whenever I see Aggy, she’s smiling. And when she’s not, she’s trying to. I don’t know if that bitter tone she’s captured in her work is a tribute to her writing or her acting skills. My heart breaks a little knowing the origin of this piece.

Memento mori, indeed. But I wonder, Death, do you remember me?

Reading the final lines of the poem, I sigh and shake my head. ‘This is beautiful, Aggy. But damnit, it always makes me want to cry.’

‘Don’t cry, love. I don’t. It hurts in a good way. Like when you spend a long time making something, and then you finish it.’

‘I don’t know if I’m capable of feeling good hurt. I think I can only feel bad hurt.’