“She didn’t want to bother you two,” Buddy said. “She’s been acting like dying was something she could do in her spare time, between hair appointments.”

Charlie snapped to attention. That was the kind of thing he’d thought to himself several times when he was retrieving a soul vessel and had seen people who were so far in denial about what was happening to them that they were still buying five-year calendars.

“Women, what are you gonna do with ’em,” Buddy said, winking at Jane.

Charlie suddenly felt a great wave of affection for this sunburned little bald guy who his mother was shacked up with.

“We want to thank you for being here for her, Buddy.”

“Yeah.” Jane nodded, still looking a little dazed.

“Well, I’m here for the whole shebang, and then some, if you need me.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said. “We will.” And they would, because it was immediately evident to Charlie that Buddy was going to hang on himself only as long as he felt he was needed.

“Buddy,” said a soft female voice from behind Charlie. He turned to see a big, thirtyish woman in scrubs: another hospice worker—another of the amazing women that Charlie had seen in the homes of the dying, helping to deliver them into the next world with as much comfort and dignity and even joy as they could gather—benevolent Valkyries, midwives of the final light, they were—and as Charlie watched them at work, he saw that rather than become detached from, or callous to their job, they became involved with every patient and every family. They were present. He’d seen them grieve with a hundred different families, taking part in an intensity of emotion that most people would feel only a few times in their lives. Watching them over the years had made Charlie feel more reverent toward his task of being a Death Merchant. It might be a curse on him, but ultimately, it wasn’t about him, it was about serving, and the transcendence in serving, and the hospice workers had taught him that.

The woman’s name tag read GRACE. Charlie smiled.

“Buddy,” she said. “She’s awake and she’s asking for you.”

Charlie stood. “Grace, I’m Charlie, Lois’s son. This is my sister, Jane.”

“Oh, she talks about you two all the time.”

“She does?” said Jane, a tad surprised.

“Oh yes. She tells me you were quite the tomboy,” Grace said. “And you—” she said to Charlie. “You used to be nice but then something happened.”

“I learned to talk,” Charlie said.

“That’s when I stopped liking him,” Jane said.

Lois Asher was propped in a nest of pillows, wearing a perfectly coiffed gray wig tied back in the style she had always worn her real hair, a silver squash-blossom necklace and matching earrings and rings, a mauve silk nightgown that blended so well with the Southwestern decor of the bedroom that it looked as if Lois might be trying to disappear into her surroundings. And she did, except the space she’d made for herself in the world was a little bigger than she now required. There was a gap between the wig and her scalp, her nightgown hung almost empty, and her rings jangled on her fingers like bangles. It was clear to Charlie that she hadn’t actually been sleeping when they’d arrived, but had sent Buddy out with the excuse to give Grace time to dress and arrange her for presentation to her children.

Charlie noticed that the squash-blossom necklace was glowing dull red against Lois’s nightgown and he felt a long, sad sigh rise in his chest. He hugged his mother and could feel the bones in her back and shoulders, as delicate and fragile as a bird’s. Jane tried to fight down a sob as soon as she saw her mother, but managed only to produce what sounded like a painful snort. She fell to her knees at her mother’s bedside.

Charlie knew it was perhaps the stupidest question one could ask the dying, yet he asked: “How are you doing, Mom?”

She patted his hand. “I could use an old-fashioned. Buddy won’t let me have any alcohol, since I can’t keep it down. You met Buddy?”

“He seems like a nice man,” Jane said.

“Oh, he is. He’s been good to me. We’re just friends, you know.”

Charlie looked across the bed at Jane, who raised her eyebrows.

“It’s okay, we know you guys are living together,” Charlie said.

“Living together? Me? What do you take me for?”

“Never mind, Mom.”

His mother waved off the thought as if she was shooing a fly. “And how is that little Jewish girl of yours, Charlie?”

“Sophie? She’s doing great, Mom.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“What’s not it?”

“It wasn’t Sophie, it was something else. Pretty girl—too good for you, really.”

“You’re thinking of Rachel, Mom. She passed on five years ago, remember?”

“Well, you can’t blame her, can you? You were such a sweet little boy, then I don’t know what happened to you. Do you remember?”

“Yeah, Mom, I was sweet.”

Lois looked at her daughter. “And what about you, Jane, have you found yourself a nice man? I hate the idea of you being alone.”

“Still looking for Mr. Right,” Jane said, giving Charlie the “we’ve got to get away and have an emergency meeting” head toss that she had practiced around their mother since she was eight.

“Mom, Jane and I will be right back. We can call Sophie and talk to her then, okay?”

“Who’s Sophie?” Lois asked.

“She’s your granddaughter, Mom. You remember, beautiful little Sophie?”

“Don’t be silly, Charles, I’m not old enough to be a grandmother.”

Outside the bedroom Jane fumbled around and in her purse and produced a pack of cigarettes, but couldn’t figure out whether to smoke one or not. “Holy Motown Jesus with Pips, what the fuck is going on in there?”

“She’s got a lot of morphine in her, Jane. Did you smell that acrid smell? That’s her sweat glands trying to take the poisons out of her body that her kidneys and liver would normally filter. Her organs are starting to shut down, it means that there’s a lot of toxins going to her brain.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve read about it. Look, she never lived in reality completely, you know that? She hated the shop and hated Dad’s work, even though it supported her. She hated his collecting, even though she was just as bad. And the thing with Buddy not living here—she’s trying to reconcile who she’s always thought she was with who she really is.”

“Is that why I still want to punch her lights out?” Jane said. “That’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“Well, I suppose—”

“I’m a horrible person. My mother is dying of cancer and I want to punch her lights out.”

Charlie put his arm around his sister’s shoulder and started walking her toward the front door so she could go outside and smoke. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said. “You’re doing the same thing, trying to reconcile all the moms that Mom ever was—the one you wanted, the one she was when you needed her and she was there, the one she was when she didn’t understand. Most of us don’t live our lives with one, integrated self that meets the world, we’re a whole bunch of selves. When someone dies, they all integrate into the soul—the essence of who we are, beyond the different faces we wear throughout our lives. You’re just hating the selves you’ve always hated, and loving the ones you’ve always loved. It’s bound to mess you up.”

Jane stopped and stepped back from him. “Then how come it’s not messing you up?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because of what I went through with Rachel.”

“So you think that when someone dies suddenly like that, that this face-reconciliation thing happens?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a conscious process. Maybe more for you than for Mom, you know what I mean? You feel like you have to put things right before she’s gone, and it’s frustrating.”

“So what happens if she doesn’t integrate all that before she dies. What happens if I don’t?”