The funeral director greeted them at the door and led them into the chapel. There were already around seventy-five people there, and although she recognized faces, Josie couldn’t remember how her mother had known most of these people. A woman who she thought might be her mother’s tennis partner hugged her, and then it seemed like an endless series of hugs and shoulder squeezes and back rubs: a distant cousin, a next-door neighbor, a woman Josie was sure she had never met but who knew her name and where she was living; and Josie thought that if one more person touched her, she would scream. She looked for her father. He was sitting with her aunt in the front pew, surrounded by well-wishers. In front of him was the casket. It was a dark mahogany with brass handles, and on top rested a bouquet of white roses. There were other bouquets including one of those giant wreaths with legs and a banner that read ETERNAL REMEMBRANCE that Josie knew her mother would have thought tacky. She wondered if it had a card, and she thought that if she read all the cards on all the bouquets very slowly, she might be able to avoid being touched by anyone else, but next to the bouquets was also the casket, and from where Josie stood, she could see it was open, could see a slice of white satin interior, a puff of her mother’s blonde hair. If they expected her to walk by the casket, they were mistaken, and if they insisted, she would simply refuse. They couldn’t make her. She wasn’t a child, and she wouldn’t be forced to offer goodbye kisses. She felt her head grow light and her stomach lurch, and then her cousin’s hand on her shoulder, and she jumped.

“Steady there, soldier.”

She hadn’t seen Natalie in over a year, and she looked rounder and happier than when Josie had left. “Nat,” she said.

“Come with me,” Natalie said, and pulled Josie out of the chapel and into the funeral director’s office. Natalie closed the door and gave her a hug. “You okay?” she asked.

Josie nodded.

“Yeah, well, we all know how well you and your mom got along. Guess this whole dying thing will make it a little easier?”

Josie giggled, and was glad that someone was able to state the obvious without also trying to convince her that underneath the friction there had been some stalwart devotion. She took a deep breath and sat in one of the overstuffed pink chairs.

“Your mom made me come with her to make the arrangements,” Josie said. “I felt like I was picking out wallpaper.”

Natalie sank into the other chair and put her feet up on the low table. “Are you going to speak at the service?”

“You must be kidding.”

“Didn’t think so,” Natalie said.