The hours following Julian’s passing were a blur of hushed phone calls and muffled sobs. Eleanor finally emerged from her garden, her face a mask of tragedy, to coordinate with the local mortuary.
Mr. Silas, the town undertaker, was a tall, gaunt man who smelled faintly of peppermints and talcum powder. He arrived in the dead of night, moving with practiced solemnity. Elias watched from the top of the stairs as Mr. Silas and his assistant loaded the heavy, velvet-draped stretcher into the back of a black hearse.
“We will take excellent care of him, Mrs. Vance,” Mr. Silas assured Eleanor, pressing his hat to his chest. “He will be prepared for the viewing with the utmost respect.”
“Wait,” Elias called out, his voice cutting through the heavy silence of the foyer.
He descended the stairs slowly, his expression unreadable. Eleanor looked at him in surprise, while Mr. Silas offered a patronizing, sympathetic smile.
“I need a moment alone with him,” Elias said firmly. “Before he leaves the house. It is... a tradition. From his laboratory.”
Eleanor hesitated, looking to Mr. Silas for guidance. The undertaker nodded gently. “Of course, young man. Grief takes many forms. We can wait in the parlor for ten minutes.”
Once they were gone, Elias stepped out into the damp night air. The hearse idled quietly in the driveway. He opened the rear doors and climbed inside the cavernous back, pulling the heavy doors shut behind him to block out the glow of the porch light.
He pulled back the velvet cloth to reveal his father’s face. In death, the frantic tension had left Julian’s features, leaving behind a waxy, serene mask.
Elias reached into the pocket of his woolen trousers and withdrew a small, leather-bound surgical kit—his father’s favorite, the one he used for delicate extractions. He unrolled the leather on the deceased man’s chest, the stainless steel instruments gleaming in the dim light of the streetlamp filtering through the hearse’s tinted windows.
“Observation, Elias,” the phantom voice echoed in the boy's mind. “We must arrest the ravages of time. We must capture the truth before it rots.”
Elias selected a curved scalpel and a pair of fine-tipped forceps. His hands, unlike his father’s in his final days, were perfectly steady. He worked quickly, efficiently, drawing upon years of silent observation in the basement laboratory. There was no hesitation, no revulsion. It was simply a procedure. An act of preservation. An honoring of a dying man's final, frantic wish.
Ten minutes later, Elias emerged from the hearse, wiping his hands thoroughly on a clean linen rag. He closed the doors with a solid thud and walked back into the house.
“He is ready now,” Elias told Mr. Silas.
At the closed-casket funeral three days later, the visitors remarked on how peaceful the service was, though they whispered about the tragedy of not being able to see the great doctor one last time. Mr. Silas had cited "complications in the embalming process" that necessitated a closed lid, a white lie that saved the family from unnecessary trauma.