Her father worked for the Rendering Plant located on the east bank of the Des Moines River and on the gravel road that went past the livestock sale barn. Everyone knew about the Rendering Plant. Whenever you smelled something dead, you’d call Wilmar Johnson. You’d look in the phone book under R and dial the number. You hoped the truck would arrive within the hour because you didn’t want the dead animal to ripen anymore than it had. But dead things always got worse, never better.

Usually Leta, her older sister, answered the phone but if she had a Chemistry Club meeting at school, Frances had to do it. She’d say, “Rendering Plant. How can I help you?”

The man would always sound panicked and say, “Got a dead cow here. Drowned in the creek. Can you get it out?”

And she’d answer back, “Sorry. We can’t get our truck down there. You’re going to have to take it out of the creek yourself. Wrap a chain around it and pull it out. Drag it up to the road where we can get to it. We’re not a tow truck for dead animals.”

The man would be irritated that he had to touch the animal. “Well, it’s pretty ripe. It’s like a balloon. I don’t want to see it pop.”

“Neither do we, so be careful. Don’t poke it with any sharp objects.”

The man would hang up more animated than when he first called. The man thought her dad was supposed to do all the work. Frances hated how people laughed at Dad and his truck. Whenever she was with her dad and they drove through town, people pointed and covered their noses and gagged. It was worse in summer.

But she was amazed that her dad wasn’t bothered by it. He’d say to her, “It’s a decent job. Someone’s got to do it.”

“But why couldn’t you sell cars? Anything but this.”

Frances and Leta lived with their dad in the bungalow with the open front porch on the property of the Rendering Plant. There was a shed out back where her dad kept his work clothes if he’d had a really bad case. A bad case was an animal that had been dead for a week and had exploded. Frances knew her dad hated those cases. He would sometimes get in a fight with the farmer when the hog couldn’t be lifted in one piece. One time when he was loading the hog with the wench, the chain cut the hog’s head off and she remembered seeing it on the ground with flies in its eye sockets.

An old ringer wash machine was in the shed and when the hog had exploded and gotten his jeans and shirt all messy, he washed them out there, using lye soap. Many summer evenings, she’d see her dad in his underwear doing a load of wash. He had hooked up electricity to the shed so he could work the machine. He would use cold water from a hose. In winter, though, the hose couldn’t always be used because the water would freeze in it. Frances hated when that happened. One time her dad went to the laundromat in town to wash a tainted pair of overalls and Mrs. Moran, the owner, had raised a real fuss because the clothes smelled so bad. She said the smell drove people out of her place. And no one wanted to use that wash machine after he’d filled it with his dirty overalls. She had to clean the machine with Clorox and ammonia and sent dad a bill. So Dad was banned from the laundromat.

*

Today Frances had gotten the mail at the end of the lane. When she came inside, she was waving a large envelope, addressed to Miss Leta Johnson from The College of Mortuary Science. She showed Leta the envelope and then pulled it away. “Why would you even think of it?”

“It’s none of your business. Now give it to me.”

“But why would you want to be around more dead bodies? Haven’t you had enough living here?”

Leta was smaller than Frances, who was two years younger. She reached around and grabbed for the envelope. Frances let go. Leta hurried to their bedroom with the envelope in her hand. She slammed the door and locked it. Frances hated when she did that. It was her room, too. But this was too much. She couldn’t believe that Leta would be interested. That was the third envelope she’d gotten this month.

It was the second Saturday in January and bitter cold out. Frances liked when it got this cold because the smell from the Rendering Plant wasn’t as strong. The bitter cold crystallized the smell so it could rise higher in the air and disappear into the clouds.

Her dad was out collecting another dead hog. That had been the fourth call today. Frances had to get to school in an hour for Reader’s Theater practice. She was waiting for him to pick her up. Frances had taken her bath and put on Tabu talcum powder and cologne. She’d asked Leta for that gift set for Christmas.

She stood at the window watching for the dark blue cab of the truck. He should have had an easy time of getting the hog. It would be frozen and it would be easy to lift it into the back of the truck. It would stay in one piece.

Frances wanted to live somewhere else. She always had. She wanted a yellow house with two stories and white shutters and a large yard that had flowers and a grill. Mostly she wanted a house that didn’t look out onto a Rendering plant where dead animals were ground up and made into feed for livestock. And it made her sick how the plant poured stuff into the river, coloring it deep red for a mile downstream.

They lived there since the rent was free. Her dad was supposed to be the night watchman, too, but he didn’t watch much. Only on Halloween did he guard the entrance. The white bungalow sat back behind the plant in a grove of trees on a high piece of ground. That was the only thing Frances liked about the place. There were trees around it and in summer it was hidden away and if you looked upriver it was a pretty sight.

She heard Leta come out of the bedroom. “When is that tire going to be fixed?” she asked.

“Not until after four,” Leta said. Leta had an old Chevy that she drove and it was always picking up nails on the gravel road. The livestock sale barn was down the road and for some reason more nails got on that road. They just did. Frances had a theory that the cattle, hogs and sheep headed to the sale barn could sense their doom coming and moved around so much in the back of trucks that they loosened the boards. Leta had gotten her car last summer when she’d turned sixteen and Frances had been so relieved to drive to school in a regular car that didn’t stink. For years they had Dad drop them off a block away from school when he had a dead cow in the back.

Frances spotted the rendering truck coming down the road. Dad wouldn’t have time to take out the dead hog. She stood at the front door and watched him pull into the lane and head back toward their house. Last summer Leta and Frances had painted the house themselves and had made dad move three wrecked cars and junk from the plant. They were tired of living with junk and Leta was already planning for her graduation party. He’d rented a Caterpillar for a day and Frances had been so relieved to see him push the old cars down into the ravine near the river. He had pushed the other junk—old rusted pipes and tubes and two fallen-down sheds—into the ravine, too. And he’d covered the junk with dirt he pushed on top of it. Frances and Leta had planted new grass seed on what was now smooth dirt around the house. Frances thought that these changes would make things better but there was still the smell and the steam coming from the chimneys on the roof of the plant.

“Pick me up at 5:00,” Frances called to Leta who was carrying her Calculus book to the kitchen table. She was always studying. She was the smartest in her class of 47 students. Frances wasn’t smart like Leta, but she was prettier and more fun and could act.

Frances never wanted to have her friends drive her home even though their place was only a mile from town. She hurried out the front door and walked across the open porch. She pulled up the hood of her coat and ran. Damn, it was bitter. She jumped into the cab of the truck. The heater was going and it smelled inside. She’d given dad a pine-scented car deodorizer for Christmas, but it didn’t begin to cover the putrid smell that he had on his boots.

“Did you know that Leta is thinking of being an undertaker?” Frances asked her dad when she slammed the door shut.

“Nope. How do you know that?”

“Don’t you pay attention to the letters she gets?”

“Not really. You girls get the mail first.”

Dad was dressed in so many layers that he looked like he couldn’t move. He had his insulated brown coveralls on with a hooded sweatshirt and a regular sweatshirt and long underwear underneath. Today he had an orange hunter’s vest over the top to keep him warm. His cap that said Rendering Plant was under the hood of the sweatshirt. He had earmuffs under the hat. He was always getting earaches and the doctor said he needed his ears covered. He had taken off his gloves and they were on the seat next to her. God, she hated having those so close to her.

He hadn’t shaved and a heavy stubble was on his chin. Yet the sides of his face were still clean. Dad was 46 years old but he seemed older. Leta had told her that Dad took a divorced woman to the Legion dance on New Year’s Eve. She was the same one he took to the Harvest Dance in November. Frances had been at a sleepover at her friend Cara’s house and Leta had stayed home. Leta said Dad smelled like English Leather after-shave that night and had on the new gray v-necked sweater they’d given him for Christmas. Leta said they should have given him a new shirt because the one he had on underneath was worn at the collar and was missing a button. Leta had ironed the collar and front part of the shirt. They’d have to get him a new shirt before graduation in May. Before leaving for his date Dad had cleaned his alligator cowboy boots.

Frances wondered what it would be like when Leta left for college next fall. Frances would enjoy cleaning on her own time schedule and not Leta’s. And she’d enjoy having the bedroom to herself. Leta had never had a summer job like other girls who worked at the Chick Tock Drive-In or the A&W. Leta got paid answering the phone for the Rendering Plant. They never had their own phone line but only the plant line. That’s why Frances never could talk on the phone for more than two minutes at a time. Dad said someone might be trying to call him or the plant supervisor. Frances waited until dad went to bed at ten and then she called Cara or Ellen. Who would be calling about a dead cow or an order for hides in the middle of the night?

Frances looked over at dad who was driving with one hand. “Well, I think it’s too weird to want to be around dead bodies.”

“Someone has to do it,” Dad said.

“Do what?”

“Deal with the dead bodies. I guess I’d want someone like Leta taking care of my body when I die.”

“Don’t talk about that,” Frances said.

“And why not? We’re all going to die.”

“Not me.” She saw her dad give her a look. His one eyebrow was raised. “Well, not for a long long time.”

“That’s what your mom thought, too.”

“Well, she was a lot older. Not my age.”

“She was just 28, a young girl. Expected to have a lot more kids, she did.” His voice cracked and he coughed to cover it. His eyes were wet.

“Dad, don’t.” She hated when he did this.

“Well, we never know when it’s going to happen. She didn’t expect that car to hit her.”

Francis didn’t remember her. She’d been only three but Leta remembered her and that made Frances angry. And there were a lot more snapshots of Mom with Leta than with her. And then after it happened her dad must have lost the camera because Frances only has a photo of her eighth birthday. What happened to years four, five, six and seven? Huh? She was burned up about that. Did Dad forget how to operate a camera? Leta said she’d taken that photo of Frances with the lopsided cake and seven little candles with a big candle. She said there were only seven candles left in the box and Dad wasn’t going to go to town to get another box. So Leta had taken one from the advent candle ring.

Leta had won an instamatic camera from selling Christmas cards for a fundraiser for school. Frances remembered that. They’d ridden with dad in the truck and whenever he stopped to pick up a dead cow, Leta and Frances would go to the house and ask the lady there to buy a box of cards. And they all did. Frances figured they both looked so pitiful that they couldn’t refuse them. And most of the time the lady gave them a cookie or drink of juice. Frances remembered one lady wiping her nose and mumbling something about you poor girls. That was the lady who dropped off a box filled with clothes from her daughters who were too old to wear them. Frances had loved the royal blue winter coat with the matching beret.

“Well, I think Leta’s wasting her life if she does that. She’s smart and could do anything.”

They were nearing the school and Frances looked around. There were only a few cars in the lot on Saturday afternoon. Right now she didn’t see any other cars driving up. “Drop me at the door. It’s too cold to walk.”

Dad reached over and grabbed her arm. “So you think I’ve wasted my life too?” he asked.

She didn’t know what to say.

“Do you?” he pressed again.

“Well, anything would be better than what you do.” She jumped out of the truck but for a second looked at her dad’s face. It had fallen. Why was he acting so pouty? God, she was always telling him that she hated what he did and he should work somewhere else.

“So what if I got a new job? What if we moved to town?” he asked.

She turned around. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing. Go on in.”

But Frances didn’t feel it was nothing.

“Move to town? When?”

“When do you need to get picked up?” Dad asked.

Frances was watching Dad. Something was different. He was whistling more and he smelled like aftershave more often.

“At five, but Leta will get me.”

“Okee dokey,” said Dad.

She slammed the door and wondered why in hell he was saying okee dokey. That wasn’t like him. And she felt herself panic inside. Move to town. Did that mean he was going to get married again? Oh God, she didn’t want a mother. She was fine with Leta and was actually looking forward to being alone—just herself and Dad in the house. And why move when they’d painted the house and cleaned up the yard. Why now?

Leta was waiting in the school parking lot at five. When Frances opened the car door, she smelled the vanilla scented deodorizer she’d given her for Christmas. “Do you think dad is going to get married?” Frances asked.

“Well, Tammy calls him a lot.”

“She does? How come you never told me?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Do I have to ask everything? Can’t you just tell me things? I tell you stuff.”

Leta rolled her eyes at Frances. “Oh you do, huh? How come I found out from Cara that you got the lead in the Reader’s Theater?”

“Oh, it’s no big deal. We don’t even have to memorize lines. Just read it.”

“And what about drinking that Sloe Gin at her sleepover last week? She said you were acting goofy.”

Damn, what was Cara doing telling Leta these things. “So?”

“So, you were drunk and threw up.” She heard Leta’s tone of disapproval. It made her mad when Leta acted this way. But Lord knows Leta would never drink. She had one friend—Ruth—who was a book worm and was going to be a doctor.

“So?”

“So you shouldn’t be doing that. You’re only fifteen.”

“Hey, are you my mother? You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I have a right as your older sister to tell you when you are out of line. And I don’t want you drinking. And if I hear about it again I’m telling Dad.” Leta was turning left on Main Street, but she was waiting for a pick up to go by. God, she was so careful. She had plenty of time to turn before that slowpoke farmer got by.

“You wouldn’t dare,” said Frances.

“Oh, yes I would,” said Leta.

Frances chewed louder on her gum. She hated her right now. She hated that she acted so high and mighty. It would do Leta some good to get drunk and let loose. But what the hell. She was going to be a mortician—take care of dead people. That was just great.

“Did you know we might move to town?”

Leta nodded. “I suspect so if he gets married. She wouldn’t want to live at the plant.”

“What?” Frances asked. “I suppose you’ve known this and haven’t told me. Another damn secret you’ve kept from me.”

“ Like I said. She calls all the time and leaves messages for him.”

“What kind of messages?”

“Things like when the movie starts or to pick up some light bulbs at the store.”

“Can’t she pick up her own light bulbs? God, he can’t remember them for us.”

Leta was driving by the sale barn. It was always deserted on the weekends but on Monday night the yard was full of trucks emptying livestock. And on Tuesday morning the yard was packed with cars and the overflow were parked along the road. The sale always started at nine.

“I wondered that too. I wanted to say the same thing to her. He forgets bread on the top of the list I give him so don’t be surprised that he forgets light bulbs.” Frances heard Leta’s tone change. She was acting like a sister now and not a mom.

“So you really think he’s really going to marry her?”asked Frances.

“He had me wrap a bottle of perfume and a silk bathrobe for her.”

“Yuck, a silk bathrobe. He doesn’t buy anything like that for us.” Frances had gotten a toaster for toasting muffins. She was into eating them for breakfast. And he’d given her four bags of them with four different flavors of jams. Leta had gotten a new calculator and flashlight for her car.

“Have you noticed he’s been acting happier?” Leta said.

“I guess a little. He was whistling Christmas songs a lot,” said Frances.

“And he’s been fixing himself up more. He bought himself new socks and a flannel shirt.”

“That ugly plaid thing. He could have picked a better one,” said Frances.

When they drove in the lane, they saw a maroon Cadillac parked out front. “Who’s here?” Frances said. There were plates from the car dealer on it. An in-transit sign was in the back window.

When they got inside their house, they didn’t see anyone in the kitchen or living room. When Frances called out, Dad came up from the basement with a screwdriver and new license plates.

“Did you buy that car?” Leta asked.

“Yup. Got her used. Isn’t she a beauty?”

“Why did you buy it? Frances asked.

Dad didn’t answer but said, “She’s only five years old.”

Frances pushed some more. “Bet your new girlfriend didn’t want to ride with all the dead animals, right dad?”

“Something like that,” he answered.

“Oh, that’s great. I haven’t wanted to ride in that truck for years and you never bought a car for us. Guess we don’t matter as much,” said Frances.

Dad grabbed her arm and said, “I’ve been saving for this. Didn’t have the money when you were little.”

“And why not? You get this junk heap for free.”

Dad’s face was flushed. “Hey, it’s not that bad. We got new carpet.”

“About time. And you wouldn’t have done it unless we’d raised a fuss,” said Frances

Leta stepped forward. She was the peacemaker. “The carpet’s fine. It makes the house a lot warmer.”

“But I want to know about her. I’m not moving to town to live with someone I don’t even know. I’m not going to be some Cinderella.”

“Just be quiet,” Leta said.

“Well, I’m not. I’ll stay here by myself.”

“Since when have you decided you like this place? You’ve always wanted to leave it,” said Dad.

“Since now,” said Frances and she ran toward the bedroom and locked the door.

Dad was gone a lot more lately. The truck was parked out front of their house whenever he was out and about in the Cadillac. Frances wondered when they were going to meet this girlfriend. But they got their chance one Saturday in late March when the weather turned warm and Dad had just picked up three steers at the Berkland farm. These steers had gotten left outside when the snowstorm hit four days before, and they died when their mouths got covered in snow and ice. They were found in a mound pushed up against a fence.

They were at the stop sign of Main Street when a lady and a little boy and girl came out of Ben Franklin’s. They waved at Dad and he waved back. He was all smiles until Frances said, “Is that your girlfriend, dad?”

“Yup, that’s Tammy,” he answered. Then he blushed.

“Who are those kids?” asked Frances, angry that he seemed so happy.

“Oh, that little guy is Todd and the girl is Tracy.”

“They like names with the letter T, huh? Was her ex named Ted?” Frances asked. Leta nudged her to be quiet.

“No, he was Tom,” Dad mumbled.

Tammy and the kids were waving and motioning for him to pull over. Frances could see that he didn’t want to do this considering the load in the back. But Dad headed toward a parking spot around the corner from Ben Franklin’s and across the street from the men’s clothing store.

Tammy hurried over to Dad’s window, smiling and giddy, and Frances studied her. She was halfway pretty but her reddish brown hair was ratted too high. Her head seemed too big for her short body, like she was more head than everything else. And that orange lipstick had to go, thought Frances, noticing that it went outside her lips. The little boy was jumping around and saying, “What’s in there?”

“Ah, just some junk,” Dad hedged.

Frances watched the girl, eight or nine, smile at her dad and blow him a kiss. That did it. Frances couldn’t stand it. She opened the door and said to the boy and girl. “Come on over here.”

They looked curious and walked around the front of the truck to her.

“Want to see something neat?” And she reached down and lifted the boy up. He was skinny and maybe only seven years old. “Grab onto the sides.”

“Don’t do that,” said Dad loudly.

Frances wouldn’t be stopped. “Just grab and hold on. Look over into the back.” The boy was standing on the ledge of the truck wagon and he was on his tiptoes with his chin on the edge of the box. Frances was holding onto his legs. “What do you see?” she said

“Are they sleeping?” he asked.

“No, they’re dead. Probably been dead about four days.”

Just then a gust of wind let them all know what was in the back. The girl was pulling on Tammy’s coat and saying, “Let me see.”

But their mother was running around the truck saying, “Todd, don’t put your lips on that. There’s germs. Gosh, Wilmar. Get him down. I’m going to have to get him a tetanus shot.” Tammy was at the front fender when Dad opened the door and jumped out.

Frances felt the girl tug again and she reached down and lifted her up. The girl grabbed hold of the edge and looked.

“They smell,” she said.

“Of course, they smell. They’re rotting.”

Tammy was at Frances’s side. “You get them down from there. You have no business putting them up there.”
Dad was there grabbing for the girl first but she had already begun sobbing and saying, “They stink real bad. And they look sad.”

“You big baby,” said her brother. Tammy was pulling at her son’s jeans. “Grab onto my hands, Todd. Now.”
But Dad had set the gagging and crying Tracy on the sidewalk and was reaching up for him. “There, there, sonny. Come on down.”

Frances and Leta glanced at each other. They heard it. Sonny. Son. What the hell?

Tammy was rubbing Todd’s mouth with her handkerchief. “Did you touch that truck with your mouth? Did you?” She was holding onto his chin with one hand now and shaking him.

“I don’t know,” he said, scared.

“Did your lips touch it?”

The girl jumped in. “He did. I saw him. He’s going to get sick and die, isn’t he, mom?”

Dad was trying to calm things down. “Now, now. No one’s going to get sick. Look at me. I work with these carcasses all the time and I’m as fit as a fiddle,” said Dad.

“Wil,” Tammy said loudly. “We’re going home. Now. We have to get these two into the bathtub and sterilize these clothes.”

“Mom, what if I die ‘cause I touched that?” Tracy pointed to the truck. ‘Will I be thrown into a truck like that?”
Frances knew she was in deep trouble already but she couldn’t resist. “No, Leta here’s going to be an undertaker and she’ll fix you up real nice if you croak. She’ll drain your blood and fill you with embalming fluid and sew your lips together and put you in a pretty casket.”

At that Tammy gasped and turned to Frances. “What’s wrong with you?” And she grabbed her children and pulled them along after her heading toward Ben Franklin’s. Dad was following behind, trying to patch things up.
Leta was hanging out the window. “Why did you do that?”

Frances shrugged. “They should know what they’re getting into. “

“But that was mean.”

Dad was back at the truck yelling. “Leta, drive it home.”

“But Dad I don’t know how to drive it.”

“It’s just like your car.” And then he turned on Frances and said, “I’ll deal with you later. I don’t know what your problem is but I’m sick of it. And you’re both grounded.”

When he was running back to Tammy’s car, Frances saw that Tammy was sitting on the rider’s side and dad was opening the driver’s door. Frances felt she’d been kicked in the stomach and she turned toward Leta who was moving the seat forward and said, “Did you see her in the coffin?”

Leta’s head jerked. “You mean Mom.”

Frances nodded.

“They didn’t show her. She was too… hurt.” Leta’s voice was low. Then she whispered. “ She was decapitated.”

“How do you know that?” Frances said, sucking in air.

“When I did that internship at the funeral home, I had to help put away files. I found Mom’s.”

Leta’s hands were on the steering wheel and Frances’s hands were underneath her thighs like she was sitting on them to hold them still. Her head was twirling, spinning and she didn’t know what to feel or think but all she could see was that hog’s head on the gravel and Dad’s foot next to it. And nothing made sense anymore and yet it made all the sense in the world.