Sugar Daddy (Travis Family #1)(40)

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.

Mr. Ferguson took a long time to answer, and when he did, his voice was very quiet. "Sixty-five hundred. Miss Jones."

I could afford maybe a tenth of that.

Poor people have few choices in life, and most of the time you don't think much about it. You get the best you can, and do without when necessary, and hope to God you won't be wiped out by something you can't control. But there are moments it hurts, where there is something you want in the very marrow of your bones and you know there's no way you can have it. I felt like that about Mama's casket. And I realized this was an augury of things to come. A house, braces and clothes for Carrington, education, things that would help us climb across the deep trench between white trash and middle class...these things would require more money than my ability to earn. I didn't know why I had never grasped the urgency of my situation before, even when Mama was alive. Why had I been so careless and unthinking? I felt sick to my stomach.

Stiffly I followed Mr. Ferguson to the side of the room featuring the econocaskets, and found a lacquered pine model lined with white taffeta for six hundred dollars. We went out back to a row of headstones and markers, and chose a bronze rectangular plate to lay over Mama's grave. Someday, I vowed silently, I would replace it with a big marble headstone.

As soon as news of the accident got out, ovens all over town were turned on. Even people we didn't know, or were only casually acquainted with, brought a casserole, pie. or cake to the trailer. Foil-wrapped parcels were piled on every available surface; the counters, tables, the fridge and stove. Bereavement in Texas is a time to pull out your best recipes. Many people taped them to the plastic wrap or foil that covered their offerings, which

wasn't usually done, but I guess there was a general agreement that I needed all the help I could get. None of the recipes had more than four or five ingredients, and they were the kind of food you'd often find at bake sales or potlucks. Tamale pie, ugly cake, King Ranch casserole, Coca-Cola brisket, Jell-0 salad.