And I finally understood what Miss Marva had said about living by your own lights. When you're walking through the darkness, you can't depend on anything or anyone else to light your way. You have to rely on whatever sparks you've got inside you. Or you're going to get lost. That was what had happened to Mama.

And I knew if I let it happen to me, there would be no one for Carrington.

CHAPTER 11

Mama had no life insurance and hardly any savings. That left me with a trailer, some furniture, a car: and a two-year-old sister. I would have to maintain all that on a high school education with no past work experience. I had spent my summers and afternoons with Carrington, which meant the only employment references I had were from someone who until recently had been riding backward in the car.

Shock is a merciful condition. It allows you to get through disaster with a necessary distance between you and your feelings, so you can get things done. The first thing I had to do was arrange the funeral. I'd never set foot in a funeral home before. I had always imagined such places were creepy and sad. Miss Marva went with me even though I told her I didn't need help. She said she used to date the funeral director. Mr. Ferguson, who was a widower now, and she wanted to see how much hair he'd kept over the years.

Not much, as it turned out. But Mr. Ferguson was about the nicest man I'd ever met.

and the funeral home—tan brick with white columns—was bright and clean and done up like a comfortable living room. The sitting area featured blue tweed sofas, and coffee tables with big scrapbooks, and landscape pictures on the walls. We had cookies from a china plate, and coffee from a big silver carafe. As we started to talk, I appreciated the way Mr. Ferguson discreetly nudged the Kleenex box across the coffee table. I wasn't crying, my emotions were still suspended in ice, but Miss Marva went through half the box.

Mr. Ferguson had the wise, kind, gently droopy face of a basset hound, with brown eyes like melted chocolate. He gave me a brochure titled "The Ten Rules of Grief," and tactfully asked if Mama had ever mentioned having preplanned a funeral. "No, sir," I said earnestly. "She wasn't the planning-ahead type. It took her forever just to order from the cafeteria menu."

The creases in the outside corners of his eyes deepened. "My wife was like that," he said. "There's people who like to plan and those who take life as it comes. Nothing wrong with either way. I'm a planner, myself."

"So am I," I said, although that wasn't at all true. I had always followed Mama's example, taking life as it came. But now I wanted to be different. I had to be.

Opening a book of laminated price sheets, Mr. Ferguson led me into the subject of the funeral budget.

There was a long list of things that needed to be paid for, cemetery fees, taxes, the obituary notice, prices for embalming, hair and cosmetics, a concrete grave liner, hearse

rental, music, a headstone.

Lord, it was expensive to die.

It was going to take most of the cash Mama had left, unless I wanted to put it on credit. But I was suspicious of debt. I'd seen what happened to people who started down that plastic slide to disaster. Most of the time they were never able to climb out. This being Texas, there were no shelters or programs that would afford us a decent life. The only safety net was people's kin. And I was too proud to consider tracking down unknown relatives, all strangers, so I could beg for money. I realized Mama's funeral would have to be done on a shoestring, a thought that brought a pinching sensation in my throat and hot pressure behind my eyes.

My mother had not been a churchgoer. I told Mr. Ferguson, and therefore we wanted a nonreligious ceremony.

"You can't have a nonreligious funeral," Miss Marva protested, shocked out of a weepy spell by the very idea. "There's no such thing in Welcome."

"You'd be surprised. Marva," Mr. Ferguson informed her. "We have a few humanists in town. They just don't care to admit it publicly, or they know they'd find their doorsteps occupied with Bible-bangers carrying potted begonias and Bundt cakes."

"Have you turned into a heathen, Arthur?" Miss Marva demanded, and he smiled.

"No, ma'am. But I've come to accept that some folks are happier not being saved."

After discussing some ideas for Mama's humanist funeral, we went to the casket room.

which had at least thirty of them set up in rows. I hadn't realized there would be so many choices. Not only could you pick out the outside materials, you could choose linings of velvet or satin in just about any color. It unnerved me to learn you could also decide on the firmness of the mattress on the interior bed, as if it would make a difference to the deceased person's comfort.

Some of the more elegant coffins, like the one made of oak with a French Provincial hand-rubbed finish, or the steel in brushed bronze with the embroidered interior head panel, were four or five thousand dollars. And the casket in the farthest corner of the room was gaudier than anything I could have imagined, hand-painted like a Monet landscape with water, flowers, and a bridge, all yellows, blues, greens, and pinks. It had a tufted blue satin interior and pillow, and a matching throw.

"Something to look at, isn't it?" Mr. Ferguson asked, his smile a touch sheepish. "One of our suppliers was pushing these art caskets this year, but I'm afraid it's a little fancy for small-town tastes."

I wanted it for my mother. I didn't care that it was god-awful tacky and ostentatious and that once it was six feet under, no one would ever see it. If you were going to sleep someplace forever, it should be on blue satin pillows in a secret garden concealed beneath the ground. "How much is it?" I asked.