Outside the East Room was a small foyer where people could smoke and sit in overstuffed easy chairs. The chairs looked as if they might have come directly from a distress sale at some old English men's club that had gone broke. Beside the door leading into the viewing room was a small easel, black metal chased with gold, and on this easel was a small sign which said simply CAGE WILLIAM CREED. If you went across this spacious white building that looked misleadingly like a comfortable old house, you came to an identical foyer, this one outside the West Room, where the sign on the easel read ALBERTA BURNHAM NEDEAU. At the back of the house was the Riverfront Room. The easel to the left of the door between the foyer and this room was blank; it was not in use on this Tuesday morning. Downstairs was the coffin showroom, each model lit by a baby spotlight mounted on the ceiling. If you looked up-Louis had, and the funeral director had frowned severely at him-it looked as if there were a lot of strange animals roosting up there.
Jud had come with him on Sunday, the day after Gage had died, to pick out a coffin. They had gone downstairs, and instead of immediately turning right into the coffin showroom, Louis, dazed, had continued straight on down the hallway toward a plain white swinging door, the sort you see communicating between restaurant dining rooms and the kitchen. Both Jud and the funeral director had said quickly and simultaneously, "Not that way," and Louis had followed them away from that swinging door obediently. He knew what was behind that door though. His uncle had been an undertaker.
The East Room was furnished with neat rows of folding chairs-the expensive ones with plushy seats and backs. At the front, in an area that seemed a combination nave and bower, was Cage's coffin. Louis had picked the American Casket Company's rosewood model-Eternal Rest, it was called. It was lined with plushy pink silk. The mortician agreed that it was really a beautiful coffin and apologized that he did not have one with a blue lining. Louis responded that he and Rachel had never made such distinctions. The mortician had nodded. The mortician asked Louis if he had thought about how he would defray the expenses of Cage's funeral. If not, he said, he could take Louis into his office and quickly go over three of their more popular plans-In Louis's mind, an announcer suddenly spoke up cheerfully: I got my kid's coffin free, for Raleigh coupons!
Feeling like a creature in a dream, he said, "I'm going to pay for everything with my MasterCard."
"Fine," the mortician said.
The coffin was no more than four feet long-a dwarf coffin. Nonetheless its price was slightly over six hundred dollars. Louis supposed it rested on trestles, but the flowers made it difficult to see, and he hadn't wanted to go too close. The smell of all those flowers made him want to gag.
At the head of the aisle, just inside the door giving onto the foyer-lounge, was a book on a stand. Chained to the stand was a ballpoint pen. It was here that the funeral director positioned Louis, so he could "greet his friends and relatives."
The friends and relatives were supposed to sign the book with their names and addresses. Louis had never had the slightest idea what the purpose of this mad custom might be, and he did not ask now. He supposed that when the funeral was over, he and Rachel would get to keep the book. That seemed the maddest thing of all. Somewhere he had a high school yearbook and a college yearbook and a med school yearbook; there was also a wedding book, with MY WEDDING DAY stamped on the imitation leather in imitation gold leaf, beginning with a photo of Rachel trying on her bridal veil before the mirror that morning with her mother's help and ending with a photo of two pairs of shoes outside a closed hotel door. There was also a baby book for Ellie-they had tired of adding to it rather quickly though; that one-with its spaces for MY FIRST HAIRCUT (add a lock of baby's hair) and WHOOPS! (add a picture of baby falling on her ass)-had been just too relentlessly cute.
Now, added to all the others, this one. What do we call it?
Louis wondered as he stood numbly beside the stand waiting for the party to begin. MY DEATHBOOK? FUNERAL AUTOGRAPHS? THE DAY WE PLANTED GAGE? Or maybe something more dignified, like A DEATH IN THE FAMILY?
He turned the book back to its cover, which, like the cover to the MY WEDDING DAY book, was imitation leather.
The cover was blank.
Almost predictably, Missy Dandridge had been the first to arrive that morning, good-hearted Missy who had sat with Ellie and Gage on dozens of occasions. Louis found himself remembering that it had been Missy who had taken the kids on the evening of the day Victor Pascow had died. She had taken the kids, and Rachel had made love to him, first in the tub, then in bed.
Missy had been crying, crying hard, and at the sight of Louis's calm, still face, she burst into fresh tears and reached for him-seemed to grope for him.
Louis embraced her, realizing that this was the way it worked or the way it was supposed to work, anyway-some kind of human charge that went back and forth, loosening up the hard earth of loss, venting it, breaking up the rocky path of shock with the heat of sorrow.
I'm so sorry, Missy was saying, brushing her dark blond hair back from her pallid face. Such a dear sweet little boy. I loved him so much, Louis, I'm so sorry, it's an awful road, I hope they put that truck driver in jail forever, he was going much too fast, he was so sweet, so dear, so bright, why would Cod take Gage, I don't know, we can't understand, can we, but I'm sorry, sorry, so sorry.