“Are you married?” he asks the couple, who glance at each other, then back at him as if they have never heard such a question.
“Yes,” the man says.
“Well, technically, no,” the woman corrects. “But we’ve been together for five years and we’re engaged.” She wiggles a finger to show off the diamond engagement ring.
“We’ve been so busy taking over the business for my parents when they retired that we never got around to setting a date,” the man says.
The couple is about the same height and weight, which strikes Gregory as odd. He can’t figure out why this should seem so strange. Perhaps because he was much taller and weighed a lot more than Ella, he expects the same of all couples.
“When did your parents retire?” Gregory asks the man, not really giving a damn about the answer.
“Last year,” the man replies. “Did you know my parents?”
“My wife came here when her father died four years ago. She was very happy with the service she got.”
“We can assure you, Mr. Christiansen, we’ll do our best to match the level of service your wife received.” The man glances at his partner, expecting her to concur. She does so with a smile.
“If you can’t remember your wife’s favourite flowers, which is of course completely understandable given your situation, we can make the floral arrangements,” the woman says.
Gregory remains quiet for a moment.
“You must still be in shock,” the man adds.
Gregory’s wife was seriously ill for two years. Part of him was prepared for the possibility of sitting across from people like this talking about his wife’s favourite flowers to make the funeral service “a true reflection of the deceased,” as they put it. So it wouldn’t be completely true to tell them he is still in shock. What he really feels, however, is rage — pure and undiluted.
Ever since running out of the hospital after the doctor told him his wife was dead, Gregory has experienced an array of emotions, more than he even knew existed, most of which cancelled one another out. Except rage. It remains without being transmuted into something else. It has been ubiquitous and unrelenting. What or who he is angry at hasn’t become clear with time. He is even enraged at this nice, colour-coordinated couple sitting before him, even though they appear to desire nothing more than to help him give a funeral service befitting his wife. So why is he so infuriated at them? All he can do is stare at them and silently curse the way they smile and finish each other’s sentences, how they nod appreciatively at each other’s suggestions. They have gotten under his skin, and he wants to smack them silly. To Gregory everything they do comes off as shameless gloating.
“Did your wife leave a will?” the man asks.
“Excuse me?”
“We only ask because sometimes people leave specific instructions for the sort of funeral they want. You know, the music they want played and such …”
Gregory almost asked his wife to tell him what he should do if the end came. It was on a hot August Friday afternoon after a particularly bad week when even the doctors had little hope. But since Ella never brought up the subject, he didn’t have the heart to ask her. It seemed to him as if his wife believed that any discussion of a will or funeral arrangements was a resignation, an acceptance of defeat. So he, Andrew, and Natalie rallied around her in a display of willful denial.
“No, she left me no specific instructions,” Gregory says.
“In that case, you’ll have to help us decide.” As she speaks, the woman turns to her partner for another supportive nod. “Since you knew her best, you’ll have to act as … an interpreter of sorts.”
Gregory thinks about what is being asked of him. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or both at the thought of being an interpreter for the dead. Suddenly, his anger shifts from the funeral home couple to his wife for putting him in this position. “Okay,” he says, accepting the task, face flushed with shame for being mad at his wife. She isn’t even buried yet and he has failed her already.
“For starters, have you thought about what kind of casket your wife would have wanted?” the woman asks.
“She wouldn’t have wanted one. If she had a choice, I’m sure she’d rather not be in one. Don’t you think?” Gregory watches the woman cringe with embarrassment. He feels the momentary thrill of victory, of making her feel guilty for her stupid question.
“I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to —”
“No, I’m sorry,” Gregory interrupts, his triumph shifting into sorrow for taking his anger out on this poor woman trying to do her job. If he believed in psychotherapy or ordered self-help books on Amazon.com, he would have the tools, the emotional lingo, to understand the source of his rage and know where to direct it at. Instead he is incensed at himself, at God, at the universe, at whomever is ultimately responsible for who dies and who lives. Somebody has to pay, and since he can’t see God, it might as well be this nice woman in the brown turtleneck sweater.
“We have an excellent collection of caskets to choose from,” the man says, attempting to rescue his partner.
The woman rises, picks up a huge binder from a table in the corner of the room, and hands it to Gregory. “You can leaf through it and select the one you like,” she tells him.
Does anyone actually like picking out a casket? Gregory wants to ask her, but he knows he has already been rude enough for one day. As a grieving widower, he is probably allotted a certain amount of impoliteness before people think he is an asshole. So he quietly flips through the binder’s pages, which display caskets and their prices.
The man clears his throat. “The prices range from $1,400 to over $18,000.”
Gregory glances up from the picture of the casket he is studying and frowns.
“We want you to pick the one you’re most comfortable with,” the man says.
Bullshit, Gregory thinks. You want me to choose the one that’s going to add the most to your bank account. He continues to browse the binder until he comes across a beautiful black casket. The price is $8,911. How absurd to spend so much money on a box only to bury or burn it.
Gregory once read that Muslims inter their dead wrapped in a simple white cotton sheet. At the time he thought it was disrespectful to the dead; now it makes perfect sense. “This one,” he says as he hands the binder to the woman and indicates the black casket.
“An excellent choice,” she says.
“Indeed,” the man concurs. “One of our most popular.”
Gregory has to get out of the stuffy room. One more minute with this couple and their friendly toothpaste commercial smiles and soft, consoling voices and he will scream. He might even grab the pretty vase of hydrangea on the coffee table and hurl it at them. That ought to wipe the sympathy smiles off their faces, Gregory thinks. However, two assault charges in one week would be pushing luck even for a bereaved widower.
“You said your wife wanted to be cremated, correct?” the man asks.
Is this ever going to end? Gregory wants to scream.“Well, I don’t know about always,” he says instead in a pleasant tone, surprising even himself. “But she did express an interest in cremation once.” For the first time in ages, he remembers when his wife actually talked about her death and what kind of burial she would like. Strange that it was two days into their honeymoon rather than when she got sick and was on the cusp of the hereafter. She didn’t tell him what she wanted when it really counted, when death was no longer a hypothetical, way-in-the-future abyss.
———
Gregory