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that list she used to keep under her pillow? Oh, I wish you could see her! She’s beautiful, the way they’ve got her fixed up. She told your daddy she didn’t want an open casket—she didn’t want people to see her looking so pitiful. But she’d be proud if she could see herself. Those big flower sprays you put on top of the casket have gone up, so we couldn’t afford a big one. They cost about a hundred dollars, so we got the small one for fifty. If we’d had a closed casket with just that little spray on it—why, that would look tooty!”
    Nancy’s mother talked on, describing the expenses of the funeral, the arrangements, the relatives who had called. Nancy let her mother talk. Jack was still out on the beach, oblivious to the chill wind. The water dashed against clay-colored rocks that had been cracked into hundreds of slices by a powerful force, probably glaciers. The slices had not separated. They made Nancy think of Droste chocolate oranges, which fall apart into perfect slices when tapped on the top.
    Mom said, “She’s just beautiful—she looks thirty years younger! Her hair’s fixed nice, and I bought her a pretty blue dress, a dress like she would have liked, with a Peter Pan collar and tucks.”
    “I thought she had a blue dress she’d been saving.”
    “Well, it was out of style, and they had these dresses at the funeral home, so I bought one, and bought beads. She always liked jewelry. And she has a corsage, and inside the casket lid is a blue spray. I hope somebody brings a camera. I want to get some pictures for you. She didn’t want all that money spent on her, but it was
her
money, and I’m spending it on
her,
to send her out in style.”
    “Are you going to be all right, Mom?” asked Nancy.
    “Well, they say you’re never prepared for anybody to die. And it’s true.”
    Nancy shifted the receiver to her other ear. She said, “Your life is going to be different from now on. You and Daddy can go somewhere together for the first time in years. You can come and visit me—at last.”
    “This morning he told me something that floored me,” Mom said. “He said, ‘Do you realize that last night was the first night we slept in a house alone together in forty years?’ I said no, but it’s true. Forty years! There was always somebody here to take care of. Oh, you should see all the food the neighbors brought.”
    Nancy’s mother described the food—ham, chicken, steak patties, three pies, two cakes, baked beans, three-bean salad, Jell-O salads. As she listened, Nancy kept her eyes on Jack out on the fractured rocks, a frail silhouette against the sea.
    Back at the reception, when Nancy finally cornered her old friend Laurie, who had once lived in a basement apartment below Nancy’s and played Doors albums full blast, she felt glad she had stayed. Laurie’s freckles danced around her smile.
    “I’ve had so much champagne,” she said. “And I’ve barely seen Ed since the ceremony. Is this what marriage is like?”
    “It’s a lovely wedding,” said Nancy.
    “Jack was so sweet to take those pictures.”
    “Are you going on a trip?”
    “No. We took our honeymoon last week. But next week I’m going to Mexico with my brother. He’s an archaeologist, and I have this fabulous chance to go on a dig. Ed can’t go because he has to work.”
    Nancy felt like confiding in Laurie, the way she used to when they studied together for exams. She found herself blurting out the news about her grandmother. It seemed improper to mar the wedding, and when Laurie made sympathetic remarks, Nancy said hastily, “It was expected. And she was old as Methuselah.”
    “It feels strange not going home, but I’m glad I’m here,” she added. “And I’m glad you’re doing something affirmative.”
    “That’s the way we looked at it,” Laurie said. “Ed’s best friend died this summer, and that led to our decision to get married. We realized how little time there is.”
    Laurie was holding