Page 103 of Woman on the Verge

“I understand,” she says. “It’s certainly hard to be doing all this on your own.”

I think of Grace and Liv sitting together at a table like this one day, perusing brochures while grieving Kyle or me. I’m glad they have each other.

“We also have a few options for the cremation box,” she says.

She shows me the options. The first is an ornate coffin and is priced at $1,100. The second is a slightly less ornate $600 coffin. And the third is a cardboard box that, inexplicably, costs $75. Must be special, death-appropriate cardboard.

“I’m a bit confused,” I say. “This box ... it just burns with him?”

This is possibly the strangest conversation I’ve ever had.

“Yes,” Carly says.

I can hear my dad’s laugh—so hearty and full that he starts coughing at the tail end of it, his body desperate for oxygen.Nikki Bear, you are not paying a thousand bucks for a box that will be set on fire.

“My dad would want the cardboard one.”

She nods, circling that option on her little menu sheet.

“Oh, before I forget, he’s going to be in a clinical study. They’ll be doing a brain autopsy. You guys can coordinate all that?”

“Of course. We can arrange for the necessary transfers to and from the autopsy facility and notify you when he’s back in our care.”

For the first time during this odd meeting, I am overcome with the grief that I told myself to leave in the car. There’s something about envisioning my dad’s body being shuttled to and fro that makes my chest tight.

Carly is likely trained in identifying distress. She passes me a box of Kleenex—I now notice that this little room has three of them.

She confirms that we are not having a formal service. My dad wouldn’t want that. Merry and I agreed on inviting his buddies to a celebration of life at the local golf club. We will tell everyone to wear Tommy Bahama shirts. There will be cocktails.

Carly asks if my dad has any jewelry I want them to set aside before the cremation. I think of how he lost his wedding band approximately one month after marrying Merry—they never stopped laughing about that.

“No jewelry,” I tell her.

She asks me if he has any metal in his body, as that can cause explosions in the cremation chamber. I tell her about his hip replacement. He had that about five years ago. I hated visiting him in the hospital, seeing him incapacitated. I had no idea then what I’d have to witness later.

“What about clothing? Do you want to save anything he comes in wearing, or would you like us to cremate it with him?”

Lately, my dad is wearing T-shirts with slits cut up the back so they’re more like hospital gowns—easier for Merry and Frank to get on and off. I picture his favorite shirts—the Joe’s Bar one, the Maui Brewing Company one, the Old Guys Rule one. Even though they have slits cut up the back, I want to save them.

“I’d love if you set his clothes aside.”

She makes a note.

I hear my dad again:Nikki, don’t make them keep my tighty-whities.

I smile. I would share this with Carly, but I already know that when he dies, he will be wearing a diaper.

After the appointment, I sit in my car, staring out the window, for a half hour.

Thinking of you.

Elijah.

I don’t even have the presence of mind to respond.

When I’ve accrued sufficient staring-at-nothing time, I head to see my dad. I’ve spent the past hour speaking as if he’s already dead, so part of me half expects to arrive at the house and find this to be true, Merry standing out front, eyes red, face drawn.

When I get there, my dad is, in fact, still alive, though noticeably closer to being not alive than he was a week ago. The weight loss is startling, his body disappearing before my very eyes. Where do they go, the cells that make a life?