“It’s such a pity about Patrick, isn’t it?” a woman says behind me. “He couldn’t do much of anything right and now he’s left behind a young widow and a baby.”

“He finally got a kid after years of trying. At least he was successful at one thing before he died,” answers a man.

I wonder if criticizing a dead man is normal discourse for a funeral. It feels like it’s in bad taste, even if it is accurate. After the text, Dad invited me to dinner. Over pasta, he’d admitted to being a bad, absentee father. The specific words were: I had shit for brains when you were a kid, Hara. I didn’t do good by you so I think I should make it right by being there for my son.

I nodded and told him it was fine. Even if it wasn’t fine, I would’ve said it was because Dad is—I mean, was—a salesman and if he suspected that I didn’t agree with him, he’d try to “sell” me on his ideas. I saved myself from that exhausting experience.

“Didn’t he have a child from a previous marriage?”

“I think so, but not a real one. Apparently his first wife couldn’t have kids. Or maybe she had kids before they were married because she has a daughter. Anyway, this is his first real child—and a son, thank goodness.”

I should move. There’s no point in listening to this conversation anymore. I look down at my feet and order them into motion but they remain planted.

“I knew it was something because when I first heard he was having a baby, I offered my condolences. Who wants to parent a toddler at the age of fifty? But Pat was thrilled to death. He said that he hadn’t ever got to experience the whole bottle-feeding, diaper-changing bit and that he couldn’t wait.”

“Crazy. I’d lock myself in the bathroom for the next five years if my wife told me she was pregnant.”

“Same, but Pat was beside himself with excitement.” The woman tsks. “Too bad. It’s all so tragic.”

That’s enough funeraling for today, I decide. It’s not just the conversation that’s unsettling; it’s that save for my mom, Nina, and Ryder, everyone else is a stranger to me. I don’t know how any of these people are connected to my father. Were they coworkers? Golf partners? Part of a swingers’ club? I have zero idea and the more I think about it, the greater my head aches. If I stay much longer in this oppressive room with its tinny classical music soundtrack and the spiteful extras, I might climb onto a table and ask to be embalmed. I turn to make my way back to Mom when a wave of my coworkers streams through the door, blocking my escape.

“Hara, my goodness, how are you?” My supervisor, Lisa, envelops me in a big hug before I can sidestep it. “Why didn’t you tell us when your father’s funeral was? If Kelly hadn’t come across the obituary, we would not have known!”