Everything I know about mourning, I learned from my father. A professional mourner like his father before him, he knew thirty-three different ways of appearing desolate. Most people only know four. We lived above the mortuary. The corpses never bothered me, they were easy to get along with and didn’t mind the dark. We went to funerals every day, my father was the best mourner. One of the great benefits of our work—we never had to worry about food. It was always catered, there was usually baked brie, pâté on toast points, two different kinds of champagne. My father said his favorite part of a funeral was the women. They always smiled at him as they walked by in their black silk dresses, made him think of sailboats on a summer night gliding on the water.