20

The next day, I came downstairs for breakfast and found my dad more animated than I’d seen him in a decade. He was sitting at the table, doing twenty things at once. Looking at the paper, chewing his toast, bouncing his leg. I could barely focus on him. I would have been more concerned if I didn’t recognize the energy. He was excited about a new idea.

“Morning, pardner!” he said when he saw me.

In the old days, he used to pitch schemes to my mom before she was even awake. Secretly, I think she found it a little exciting. Until all the ideas failed.

“How many cups of coffee have you had?” I asked.

“I lost count,” he said. “Sit down. I want to tell you a story.”

I sighed and rubbed the crusty sleep from my eyes. Then I poured some coffee and threw myself down into the chair across from him.

“I want to tell you about this guy I met when I first got started. Irving Breeze.”

“That’s not a real person,” I said.

I grabbed a piece of toast from his plate and took a bite.

“Just listen. He owned his own funeral home in South Minneapolis for forty years. And it was incredibly successful, but not because there was anything exceptional about it. He buried people. He cremated people. He gave wakes and viewings. He was, quite literally, your grandmother’s funeral director.”

“Is this going somewhere?”

“The X-factor,” said my dad, “was Irv himself. He was a former football player who liked to wink and shake hands, and he was the undisputed champion of the church potluck. He subscribed to the newsletters of every congregation in town and he scanned them every week for any event open to the public.

“It didn’t matter what religion. He’d show up clutching a pan of hotdish or homemade Scotcheroos in his enormous hands. And on his way out, he’d always leave the man of the cloth with a wink, a donation, and a lovely notepad with the name of his parlor stenciled on the top. The next time one of the flock met their maker, guess which funeral home was recommended to the family?”

“Irv the Perv’s?”

“Don’t call him that.”

His smile momentarily faltered.

“So, what do you think?” he asked.

“I’m down for crashing potlucks,” I said, “but you don’t know anything about church. They’re going to smell the Godlessness on you.”

“I don’t want to go to churches,” my dad said. “There’s a larger message here, Tessie, if you would just listen for it. You can’t just wait around. Sometimes, you have to drum up your own business. Even in the death industry.”

His leg was bouncing like crazy now. I reached out and took the coffee mug from his hand. Then I waited and listened for the brilliant idea that was surely on its way.

“Nursing homes,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Isn’t that a little crass? Even for you?”

“No,” he said.

I thought he was done speaking. Then he started up again.

“I remember when I was in the hospice with your grandma, one of the nurses was telling me that most of the residents didn’t have a plan. They wanted one, but they weren’t mobile enough to go to parlors. Their needs weren’t being met. They might be our ideal customers, Tess. Practical and quickly approaching their time of need!”

“I don’t know . . .” I said. “It sounds kind of tacky.”

“Just give it a chance,” he said.

“Are you broke again or something?” I asked.

“I may have had some debts to pay with the Ocala money,” he said.

I took a bite of toast and chewed it slowly.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Great,” he said. “I made an appointment at Sunrise Commons in an hour.”

Sunrise Commons, as you might have guessed, was a new senior living place in the deep suburbs. And before we got there, we saw a billboard for it off the side of the highway: an enormous photo of a stylish older couple holding up sparkling wineglasses. Above them, a chandelier hung like an oversized halo. They looked like they were about to have athletic old-person sex any minute. And over their smiling faces in five-foot font, the board read: RETIRE . . . BUT NOT FROM LIFE!

“Damn,” I said. “There goes your sales pitch.”

When we actually got to the place, the grounds looked more like my old boarding school than a nursing home. It was all decorative cornices, porticoes, redbrick chimneys. Maybe, I thought, it was a way to bring the old back to their youth. And sure enough, just after we got there, we were almost mowed down by a golf cart full of giggling octogenarians.

Inside, we walked past a fireplace bursting with spring flowers. The rest of the room was just as ornamented. Arched doorways. Wainscoting. At the front counter was a petite birdlike woman with dyed blond hair, and the largest, whitest teeth I’ve seen.

“Welcome to Sunrise Commons,” she said. “How may I brighten your day?”

“We’re here to give the death talk,” I said.

The woman’s face fell like it had been hit with a tranquilizer dart.

“I’m sorry,” Dad said. “I’m Duncan Fowler. I’m giving the presentation about end-of-life care decisions. I believe it’s in the Vanderplank Room.”

The woman’s shrewd stare was still stuck on my face as she tapped something into a touch screen on her desk.

“Fowler you said?”

Dad nodded. More tapping.

“Okay. Right. Yes. I see.”

She examined both of us one more time and rose to her feet.

“Well, I guess you’d better come this way.”

She set off walking, and my dad gave me a what-the-hell look. His manic energy had now been replaced by a Zen-like focus. We strolled through the main building of the commons, which was a maze of tiled hallways. Finally, we reached a wing in the back of the complex that actually looked and smelled like a real nursing home.

The decor was plain, and the scent of pureed food lingered in the air, melding with lemony disinfectant. When we stepped through the door of the common room, the assembled audience for Dad’s talk looked like it was composed of the oldest living humans on earth.

So this was where they kept them.

Most were in wheelchairs. Some were sitting on couches with throw blankets folded neatly across their laps. The man closest to me wore a pair of glasses with one eye blacked out. Another woman had hair so wispy and delicate it looked like dandelion fluff that might blow away in a strong breeze. Dad turned to his new congregation, cleared his throat, and pulled out a handful of lined yellow notecards.

“Good morning, everyone,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

There were a few return blinks.

“My name is Duncan Fowler. Behind me is my daughter and business partner, Tess Fowler. We specialize in unconventional funerals. And today, I would like to talk to you about doing something truly spectacular with the end of your life.”

A man in a stocking cap sniffled.

“It may seem a little odd to you, but I’ve come to realize that I care a lot about death rituals. Rituals for grief are some of the most important ones we have. And I’m trying to find ways to broaden the conversation about them.”

He looked back at me. I nodded. He wasn’t botching this, for once.

“What I really want to do is something meaningful, something that matches your personality. A ceremony that helps people feel like they have experienced something real about you.”

The man with one visible eye had it open wide now.

“All of you have lived long lives, and I’m sure there are many people who love you. I know it would help them to have an opportunity to remember you when your time comes. So, if any of you would like help with your final arrangements, I’m willing to assist you in any way I can. That’s why I’m here today.”

I exhaled and looked around the room. Dad hadn’t said anything stupid. In fact, he had kind of nailed it. But the crowd might as well have been a still photograph. Finally, the one-eyed man adjusted his glasses and raised his hand.

“I have a question,” he said.

Dad looked him in the eye and nodded. The man’s face constricted in anger suddenly, as if some switch on his back had been flipped.

“Why can’t you see that it’s completely useless?” he yelled.

The room filled with institutional silence.

“I’m sorry,” said my father. “What exactly?”

The man looked at him incredulously.

“The salad bar. It’s useless. A waste of space. Why do we have to pay for that when nobody wants it here?”

A dark-haired attendant quickly came over and put her hand on the man’s shoulder. She smiled.

“Okay, Mr. Cole,” she said. “We all know your opinion on the salad bar by now.”

“Dad . . .” I said.

“The real problem is,” the woman with the fluffy hair chimed in, “is that my daughter is supposed to pick me up in an hour. But she’s not going to know which room I’m in. Who can help me with that?”

I walked over to the attendant, a Latina woman with her hair tied back in a tight ponytail.

“What are they so upset about?” I said.

My dad stood next to me.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not you. Most of these people are from the Memory Care unit. They have their good days and bad days.”

“Memory care,” I said. “As in . . .”

“Alzheimer’s. Other forms of dementia. Many of these patients have a high level of impairment.”

A few more people in the back had their hands up now. My dad looked at them.

“Why are they at my talk?” he asked.

“It’s good to get them out of their rooms. They don’t have a lot of outside interaction.”

I stepped off to the side, wondering how quickly we could leave.

Then I saw the woman.

I’m not sure if she had been in the room before, or if she had just arrived during the Q&A. She had a bright white Betty Page haircut and a lip-sticky smile. It looked like she had gone directly from age nineteen into old age without anything in between. She was motioning me to the back row. When I reached her, she touched my wrist.

“I enjoyed the speech,” she said. “My name is Mamie Lee.”

I looked down at her. Her soft brown eyes darted back and forth.

“Thank you,” I said. “I just need to get my dad, so . . .”

I started to move forward but she tugged on my shirtsleeve.

“I would like to plan a funeral,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. “My dad has some forms I can leave with you. Maybe you can go over them with a family member.”

“That’s not what I want,” she said calmly.

Dad was looking at us now.

“I would like to have my funeral in two weeks,” she said.

I closed my eyes. I was starting to suspect the woman at the front desk of sabotage. When I opened my eyes again, Mamie Lee was looking right at me.

“I was just admitted here,” she said. “I’m in the early stages, but I’ve seen it move fast, and that’s how it usually works in my family. I would like to have one of your celebration funerals before I’m too far gone. Is that something you can do? Have it while you’re still alive?”

I looked over at my dad. His mouth was open. He didn’t seem capable of providing an answer, which wasn’t surprising.

“Of course!” I said. “We . . . do that all the time.”

I was not looking at my father now. Only Mamie Lee.

“Do you know what kind of celebration you want?” I asked.

The woman smiled to herself.

“Oh yes, darling,” she said. “I would like a burlesque funeral.”

And then I watched my father’s face turn a shade I had never seen before.