The room was dismal. Always had been. It was a melancholy concoction of Victorian wallpaper and furniture that had not been maintained as it should have been over these last decades. In and of itself, it was nothing to smile about.
Charlie and Channing Bailey had owned Bailey and Sons Funeral Home for only a few months. They had inherited it from their uncle when he and his son, their first cousin, perished in a fire at a local delicatessen. They weren't cut out for death. They had said so many times before to uncle Bailey, so this posthumous bestowing of a business was a bit of a surprise to all.
"Why do you hate parlor music?" Charlie asked of Channing. He was referring to the rather begrudging look on Channing's face the moment the piano started abuzz. It was an old piano, like everything else in the house, old but without a story familiar to Charlie or Channing. It looked expensive and more importantly foreign. None of this was to have been theirs. They were beginning to feel like permanent hotel guests.
The piano was the centerpiece of the parlor. In fact, it seemed that it may have been the reason that many of the townspeople fancied the Bailey's Funeral Home over any of the others. Charlie overheard one woman saying it brought life into a place of death. That this place was different.
"I don't hate it. Why would you think that?" Channing answered him in a soft voice, trying to indicate that Charlie should keep his voice at a minimum with mourners in the room.
The piano player was a marvelously beautiful woman named Anne Hartford. She had bright blond hair but her eyes were sad, as sad as this room. Channing couldn't help but stare. He wondered if they were kindred spirits, he and she.
"You cry when it's played," Charlie insisted.
"I most certainly do not," said Channing.
"Maybe not visibly, but I'm human like you and---"
"All evidence to the contrary."
"At any rate, I'm not trying to pry---"
"I think that's exactly what you're doing!" Channing barked. Charlie had always misunderstood Channing's introspection for depression and this was only further proof of such nonsense.
"We live in a funeral parlor. It's physically impossible for you not to hear parlor music in here, so I was just asking why you seem to have such a visceral reaction the minute she starts playing," Charlie said.
And there it was. It was never the music that was the problem. It was her.
"Oh, my. It's her, isn't it?" Charlie said this as if he had found the eighth wonder of the world.
"Keep your voice down, would you?"
"I knew it."
"You knew what? Seconds ago you were telling me that I looked physically uncomfortable from the music."
"That's right. And now I'm saying it's the musician."
Channing was breathing heavily, uncertain how he would talk his way out of this one. His brother may not have empathized with his introverted behavior, but he wasn't daft either.
"You fancy her. What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"That's what I said. Nothing. What's it to you, anyway?"
"Channing--"
"This is the place where all things come to die, isn't it? So what makes this any different?" Channing said with a surrendering, crackling voice. "If you'll excuse me," he said and he walked out of the parlor, leaving Charlie to handle the mourners.
"Suppositions were askew. Mostly because of the people who suppose," Charlie mumbled under his breath. Likely a fable's end that had been read long ago, on a night when his brother had already fallen into a deep slumber.
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