“No, I mean that I’m—”

“Art. You don’t have to explain bad jokes.” She said it with an almost laugh, which was good enough for me.

I reset the stack of photos. “I knew you didn’t believe in UFOs.”

“Maybe I do. Depends on the day. I love the show In Search of … though.”

“Yeah, me too. Best theme song ever.”

“Agreed.”

Mercy kicked up the volume in time for a blasting chorus referencing UFOs, and the rest of the ride passed in companionable silence. She pulled up onto the curbless sidewalk in front of my house, a small three-bedroom colonial-style, the rooms tightly packed into 1,500 square feet of living space. Neighboring homes huddled in close, keeping an eye on us. A crabapple tree and a young pine about as tall as I was flanked the short walk to the front door.

I gave the pictures back to Mercy and thanked her for the ride. She stowed the photos and Frisbeed the bag into the backseat as I spluttered through saying I’d call to let her know when the next Pallbearers Club meeting was.

Twisted in her seat, one arm behind the headrest, she eyed me for a length of time enough for me to consider what it was I’d said in addition to all possible other things I might then say. I couldn’t hold her stare, but I also couldn’t look away. The car’s heat billowed around my head along with the sweet, dizzying tang of antifreeze. For the first time since the funeral home, I thought about how unnerved (or frightened, I should probably admit that I was frightened) I was when I thought Mercy was hiding in the moments before she emerged from the coat closet. I was now convinced that whatever she’d say next she’d say without moving her mouth and I’d hear it as coming from behind me and feel its black-hole mass over my shoulder. As I was about to be sucked into the gravity-hungry event horizon, she ejected the cassette from the tape deck.

“I don’t do meetings. Tell me when I need to show up at the funeral home and I’ll be there. I can pick you up, too, if you want,” she said.

“Okay. Right. Thanks.”

She tossed the tape into my midsection as I crawled out of the bucket passenger seat. “Hey, you can have this. Give it a good listen.”

“Oh, thanks. That’s, um, that’s very cool. Are you sure?”

“No big deal. It’s a copy of a copy. I’ll make another one.”