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actually hoping we could hit up the Aerosoles store,” I said. Gaby might have grown up wealthy, but she wasn’t a clothing snob.
    She shook her head and laughed. “Your mom would freak if she found out you were walking around in those.”
    I laughed too—it felt good to have a conversation that didn’t take place in front of a corpse. “Oh, totally. Although, I haven’t even talked to Mom in a few days. She wanted me to go to the country house last weekend, but I couldn’t make it with work.”
    â€œHow’s she doing?” said Gaby.
    â€œShe’s hanging in there,” I said.
    â€œHave you two been talking about your dad? Maybe it would be good for both of you to . . .”
    â€œIt’s hard,” I said. “Dad was always my person, you know? Mom and Max, Dad and me. I want to connect withher, but she’s so against me working at Crawford, and I don’t know how to make her understand it.”
    â€œMaybe she doesn’t have to understand it right now,” said Gaby. “Remember when you wanted to go to NYU and she didn’t understand why you couldn’t just go to Tufts like Max? She eventually came around.”
    I could feel my chest tighten up. I wanted things to be easier with my mom. We both just felt so . . . off. I kept telling myself that we just needed some time to make everything feel normal again, or at least as normal as it could be without Dad around.
    â€œMaybe,” I said, my voice softening.
    We walked in silence for another few minutes—something we never did. Then Gaby said, “What do you think happens when you die?”
    â€œWell, first they take your body away, and then once it’s at the funeral home, they make this small incision—”
    â€œOh my God, no! No no! Stop, that’s so disgusting,” said Gaby. “I mean what do you think happens to your spirit ?”
    I was quiet again. I wasn’t particularly religious, and yet I wanted to believe that Dad was somewhere other than inside the urn my mom had placed on her bedroom shelf. It was terrifying to think about. What if I made sense of it all and came up with an answer I didn’t like? Then what? My mind flashed to Bill the day before, hunched over a body, gluing on eyelashes and plumping up cheeks. The body itselfhad a peaceful look, and I was satisfied knowing that we had seen this person through to the end of this world. But I realized then that I’d never let myself think beyond that.
    â€œAh, puppies!” Gaby said, breaking my train of thought. We were about to walk by a pet store that always had little Pomeranians and King Charles spaniels in the window. Gaby might have been the only person I knew who loved dogs even more than I did.
    I followed her to the window, happy that a bunch of furry balls of cuteness had let me off the hook from answering her question. But even as we stood there cooing at the dogs, I started to feel an uneasy knot in my stomach: Where do we go when we’re no longer here? I thought about the bodies on Bill’s metal embalming tables and where, if anywhere, their souls were at that moment. I could imagine them floating around us, popping in and out of our world and some other realm as they pleased. I wanted to believe that—if not for my dad, for myself.

FOUR
    We’ve Lost Her Mind
    L ovey girl, it’s Nanny. I’m flying up to New York next week with the Smirnoffs. I hope my granddaughter can take an hour away from death to see the old lady. If not, then I’ll see you at my funeral, I suppose. Although you’ll have to drink alone then.”
    Even through voice mail, the woman could lay on a guilt trip.
    Elaine had been raised uptown, like me. She went to finishing school instead of earning a college degree, the best option for wealthy girls at the time. To be fair, this wasn’t abnormal in the 1940s—but I still cringed imagining her