It was true. My dad actually cooked dinner that night.

It felt like the first time in years. Back when my parents were still together, he was head chef of the household. He’d spend his idle mornings (which was most of them) at the farmers’ market downtown, picking out the perfect deep-purple eggplants for his Parmigiana. After the divorce, though, it was all Lean Cuisines and Lean Pockets. If it didn’t have Lean in the title, he wouldn’t eat it. Yet, he was still a couple of pounds overweight. Go figure.

Tonight, he made a roast chicken with potatoes. It was simple, but after a week and a half of takeout, it tasted like a revelation. We ate in silence for a while before he set his fork down, brushed the hair away from his face, and rested his hands on the table.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said.

For a second, I thought he really did.

‘What?’ I said.

‘I know you’re thinking this funeral-planning business is just another bad idea of mine. I have a track record. I understand that. And some of my other . . . projects haven’t exactly worked out, at least by conventional standards. But, I want you to understand. This one is different.’

I stabbed a potato and avoided eye contact. I should have known that dinner wasn’t going to be free. It came with a lecture. When he spoke again, the tone of his voice had shifted.

‘Do you remember when Grandma died?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ I said.

My dad’s mom had died two years ago of a rare degenerative lung disease, and Dad spent most of the last days with her in the hospice. I visited a couple of times, but the place was too sad. By the end, we just sat in silence, listening to the hiss of her breathing machine.

‘I let your aunt Ruby handle most of the arrangements for the funeral,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I did that. I was unnerved, I guess. All the coffins sounded like luxury cars, and every step of the way people were trying to upsell me. I couldn’t make all those decisions while I was grieving. It was too much.’

He took a sip of water.

‘But I knew everything was wrong when we showed up to that huge church for her funeral. Remember that place? It was like the Taj Mahal. And they put that fancy purple cloth over her coffin. Grandma was never very religious. In the hospice she told me to stop the priest from coming around. She said he looked like ‘death in a nightgown’. Then, at her funeral, she got a priest whether she wanted one or not.’

‘He was awful,’ I said.

‘And that service was so self-righteous and boring! My mom wasn’t like that. I heard most of my dirty jokes from her. She liked to sing in the car, remember? That old Chrysler? And she loved those kids at the school cafeteria where she worked. She had life! That place. The tone. None of it was right.’

His eyes were widening now.

‘And so I started thinking that day. Why do funerals have to be this way? Where is the real sense of the person you knew? Where is the joy along with the sadness? Would it kill someone to make a joke? The worst has already happened, right? I couldn’t stop worrying over these problems. I was obsessed. And I wanted to make a change.’

‘So you started cremating dogs?’

‘I started making coffins,’ he said. ‘A week later. People thought I had lost my mind. Your mom was gone by then, but even she was concerned. And maybe she should have been. But the first thing I made when I knew what I was doing was a replacement coffin for Grandma.’

‘Holy crap. You dug her up?’

He sighed.

‘Just listen, will you? I worked on the thing for months. She kept a postcard of Monet’s poplar trees near her bed at the hospice, so the wood was an easy choice. I sanded that poplar until it was smooth as sea glass. I finished it off with bronze handles, and an intricate woven pattern on top. Finally, I carved her name on the lid.’

‘Joy,’ I said.

‘Joy,’ he said, and smiled. ‘It was too late to give it to her obviously. So, I went to her house and I filled the casket with her stuff. Some of it, anyway. The old FM radio she used for listening to baseball games. Some photos of her as a girl, tanned and smiling on a dock in northern Minnesota. That sparkly green sequinned sweater she wore. Then I dug a second grave in her backyard and I laid it to rest there. It’s like a time capsule now, I guess.’

‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘You buried it back there?’

‘It took me all afternoon.’

‘That’s actually pretty great,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But it still didn’t seem like enough. People need to rethink all of this stuff. We need a new culture around death. And why can’t I be the one to help start it? Somebody has to. Maybe this is what I’m supposed to do.’

He got up and walked over to the fridge. He pulled out a can of beer and cracked it open. Then he looked at me.

‘Maybe it’s what we are supposed to do.’

I returned to my food. I took a bite of chicken and chewed it slowly.

‘We?’ I said.

‘Haven’t you been thinking about it? Since Florida?’

I stuffed more food in my mouth.

‘I don’t know,’ I lied. ‘Not really.’

He took a sip of beer.

‘Well, I’ve thought it all out. I’ll pay you. We’ll work out the percentage. If you’re not going to go to school for a while, you need a job.’

My dad had never been a great disciplinarian, and his stern glance looked like an empty threat. He quickly switched tactics.

‘Look. I want this business to work,’ he said, ‘and I’ve realized I can’t do it by myself. I don’t have all the skills I need. I could use you, Tess. You showed me something in Ocala. You understand people. You know what they want. I think you might have a knack for this.’

I watched him carefully. A lock of greying hair hung over his right eye. He didn’t brush it away. I wished I could trust him entirely, that I could feel nothing but good about all of this. But it was too easy to remember other promises he’d made. The way he had changed in the last few years. Just because he was acting more like his old self tonight, didn’t mean all was forgotten.

‘What kind of partnership are we talking about?’ I asked. ‘Do I actually get a say in things?’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That’s the point. I want you to weigh in.’

He fidgeted at the table. I stopped to think. It had been a while since I’d had any leverage in a situation.

‘I have two conditions,’ I said.

He narrowed his eyes.

‘OK . . .’

‘First, any extra profits we make go back in my college account.’

My dad pursed his lips.

‘You just dropped out of high school,’ he said. ‘Why do you need a college account?’

I looked down at my plate.

‘It’s the principle,’ I said. ‘That money was mine, and you spent it like an a-hole. Either you agree to repay it, or there’s no deal.’

He wiped some condensation off the table with his palm.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I told you I’d pay you back. See. Now I’m going to. Are we good?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re not.’

‘What else?’

‘Condition two: I’m not going back to Forever Friends,’ I said. ‘And you have to defend me when Mom tries to make me. I’m done there. No more community-building. No more farming. The Quakers are fine, but I’m not one of them.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ he said.

‘Your best isn’t good enough,’ I said. ‘I actually want results.’

‘Done,’ he said.

‘Condition three: hand me your beer,’ I said.

‘You said there were two conditions.’

‘I lied.’

He squinted at me.

‘You’re not taking this beer,’ he said.

I waited, expressionless.

It took him a second, but gradually he slid the can down my way. I grabbed it and filled half my empty water glass. Then I slid it back to him.

‘I’m not toasting you with water,’ I said, and held up my glass.

He held up his half-empty beer can.

‘Morituri te salutant,’ I said.

He lowered the can.

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s Latin. It means ‘those who are about to die, salute you!’ Criminals used to say it before dying for Caesar in staged naval battles. It seems appropriate now that we’re making a living on corpses. Don’t you think?’

My father considered this a moment.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Morituri te salutant.’

We air-toasted. Then we drank.

And that’s how I became a funeral planner.