The Dearly Departed

“However long it takes for the blood to drain back into her head.”

“It’s there,” said Sunny. “Let go, for Crissakes.”

Roberta did, petulantly, as if a referee had called a jump ball and repossessed the disputed goods.

“You’re still pale,” said Dickie. “You might want to touch up your cheekbones with a little color.”

“I’ll be okay,” said Sunny. “Give me a minute without the headlock.”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve encountered this,” said Roberta.

“I never fainted before in my life,” said Sunny.

“It’s a shock to the system,” said Dickie. “No matter how close you were or what kind of parent she was or how well or poorly you got along, you only have one mother.”

“She was a fantastic parent,” said Sunny.

“Of course she was,” said Dickie.

“We grew up around it,” said Roberta. “We’re both third-generation funeral directors, so sometimes we lose sight of the fact that it’s so much more than the corporal remains of an individual.”

“What she means,” said Dickie, “is that we understand very well that it’s someone’s mother or father or husband or wife, and we can empathize, but we’re professionals and we don’t have the exact same physiologic response to the death of the loved one as our client does. We share the sorrow, but at the same time we have a job to do.”

“Hundreds of little jobs that have to be performed seamlessly,” added Roberta. “Our goal is to be as helpful yet as unobtrusive as possible.”

Sunny rubbed the back of her neck and asked what time it was.

“It’s time,” said Dickie.

“You stay right here,” said Roberta. “Everyone will understand—”

“I don’t want anyone’s understanding! No one has to know I fainted.”

“Technically? I don’t think you actually lost consciousness,” said Dickie. “I think you got woozy.”

“I want to greet people standing up. It seems the least I can do.”

“There are no rules,” said Roberta. “We encourage our mourners to do what feels right to them and not to worry about”—she flexed two fingers on each side of her face—“doing the ‘right thing.’ For example, the fact that you’re wearing navy blue tonight, and it’s sleeveless? With dangly earrings? Well, why not? There used to be an unwritten rule that anything but black and long sleeves was wrong, but times have changed. If you’d worn red, we wouldn’t have said a word.”

Sunny got to her feet, gripped the back of her metal chair with both hands, and straightened her shoulders. “Unlock the door,” she ordered.

Those who couldn’t conjure a distinct recollection of Margaret made one up: Cora Poole, whose late husband owned Fashionable Fabrics, said she remembered, as if it were yesterday, Margaret and Sunny picking out a pattern and powder-pink piqué for Sunny’s senior prom dress.

“Are you sure?” asked Sunny. “I don’t think I went to the senior prom.”

“Everyone goes,” said Mrs. Poole. “It was a Simplicity pattern, and you trimmed it in pink and white embroidered daisies that we sold by the yard.”

“It’s coming back to me,” said Sunny.

Janine Sopp, L.P.N., said she was on duty the night Sunny was born at Saint Catherine’s and took care of her in the newborn nursery.

“But I moved here when I was two,” said Sunny.

“You couldn’t have,” said Mrs. Sopp. “I remember you had a high bilirubin count and we put you under the lights.”

“Then you must be right,” murmured Sunny.

Mourners testified to being present at all of Margaret’s performances, to clapping louder and longer than anyone else to spur multiple curtain calls. Endless Community Players—co-stars, seamstresses, scenery painters, ushers—formed their own receiving line. Sunny’s Brownie troop leader, pediatrician, children’s room librarian, the Abner Cotton board, the mayor, the superintendent of schools, and the mechanic who had serviced Margaret’s car all clasped Sunny’s hand between both of theirs. Invitations issued from every trembling set of lips: Would Sunny come to Sunday dinner? Care to play eighteen holes? Borrow the videotape of a dress rehearsal of Two for the Seesaw? Mr. DeMinico, still the principal of King George Regional, still dressed in shiny brown, still resting his folded hands on the paunch bulging above his belt, asked Sunny to attend commencement as his special guest.

Dry-eyed at last, Sunny said, “Perhaps you recall that I didn’t attend my own graduation.”

He squinted into the distance, nodded curtly at several alums. “Did you get your diploma? I think Mrs. Osborn mailed it the next day.”

“No,” said Sunny. “My mother went by herself and picked it up for me.”

“We called your name,” he said, “and even though we had asked everyone to hold their applause until the end, there was a lot of clapping.”

“So I heard.”

“In recognition, I guess you could say. If I remember correctly, your mother initiated it.” He glanced toward the coffin.

“That’s not the version I got. What I heard was that a couple of girls yelled, ‘Yay, Sunny!’ Something to that effect.”

“You may be right,” said Mr. DeMinico.

“Which of course meant that the boys had to boo—”

“Just the athletes.”

“All I did was make the varsity,” said Sunny. “All I needed was one adult to stand up for me, one adult besides my mother, who thought that maybe having someone with a single-digit handicap would be good for the team and good for the school.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” said Mr. DeMinico.

“Now? Or do you mean then?”

“I can’t turn back the clock. I meant now. On this occasion.”

Behind him, an elderly woman in a black picture hat complained, “There’s a long line. Some of us have been here since twenty to seven.”

“My fault,” said Sunny, and reached around to take the woman’s gloved hand.

“You don’t know me,” said the woman, “but I had the same standing appointment as your mother did for our hair—hers with Jennifer and mine with Lorraine—side by side.” Her voice quivered. “A lovely woman. Top-drawer. That’s all I need to say, because you know better than anyone.”

“Is Jennifer here?” asked Sunny.

The woman looked behind her, leaning left then right. “There she is. Jennifer! Come meet Margaret’s daughter.” She fluttered her hands. “Hurry up. She asked for you.”

Jennifer had radically chic and severe hair for King George, bangs short and straight, dark roots showing on purpose, blunt orange hair to her jaw. “I liked your mother a lot,” she told Sunny. “She could have switched to a Boston salon—a lot of the local actresses did that once they saw their name in lights. But not your mother. She even gave me a credit in the playbills. I’ll never forget that. She was as loyal as they come.”