It is often said that there is nothing so terrible as to be the bearer of bad news, but this is untrue. Every time you convey some sorrow of your own, you are borne up by the dismay you bring to other people, which makes your own sensations fuller and more rounded. It is painful to make others sad, but their sadness also places and contains and validates your sadness. I called all my mother’s friends and many of my own friends that morning. I did not chat with anyone; I gave the news to each of these people and explained that I had many calls to make, and hung up almost at once. This telephoning was a powerful business: I felt that I reached into each of these men and women and brought forth their grief. Of course everyone was shocked, everyone but the very closest members of my mother’s inner circle. “But last week,” they all said, “at the party,” they all said, and I said only that she had died quietly and at home and as she had wanted to die.

That afternoon, we went to the funeral home to choose a coffin. There were dozens of designs available, and the choice reminded me of shopping for furniture with my mother; I could hear her voice criticizing busy designs and fussy craftsmanship. Freddy and I walked through the display room, and at last I saw a coffin of very simple design, made of beautifully grained wood, highly polished, with elegantly finished corners. It reminded me of the piano at home. I said I thought it was the right one, and my father and Freddy conceded that it was. Then the director of the funeral home (how do people become the directors of funeral homes, I wondered) took us into his office and said that everything would be taken care of and that the coffin would be brought to the chapel where the funeral was to take place. He asked whether we wanted to have flowers at the funeral.

“Oh, yes,” said my father. “She would have wanted lots of flowers.”

The director of the funeral home suggested calla lilies.

I said that my mother had always hated calla lilies.

“I like calla lilies,” my father said, but Freddy pitched in with me.

“Mom used to say they were the ugliest flowers on earth,” he said. “Like plastic coffee filters.”

The director of the funeral home wondered whether we had any other particular ideas, and brought out a book with glossy photographs of funeral wreaths.

I looked at Freddy and he looked at me. “Pink peonies,” I said. “The only flowers for this funeral should be pink peonies.”

The funeral director asked no further questions about the peonies. He wrote down our instructions. He wondered in what clothes we wanted to bury my mother.