Chapter 12: What Remained of Him
On a Saturday I opened the box from James’s office.
It held a mug, a pair of headphones, a stack of notebooks, and a framed photo from a trip we had taken before the overseas assignment. In the photo we were squinting into sun, unremarkable and alive. I sat on the rental floor and cried in the ordinary, ugly way that does not care about cameras or family group chats. When it finished, I washed my face and put the photo on the nightstand. The notebooks I stacked beside it. The mug I used the next morning for tea.
May you like
Grief did not require my relatives’ participation. It required time and a room that stayed warm. I had both now, imperfectly. I called the overseas funeral home once more to confirm the last of the paperwork on the interment. The clerk was kind in the professional way of people who speak to the newly widowed daily. I thanked her and hung up and sat with the silence until it was only silence, not an accusation.
Mrs. Keller asked if I wanted company for the afternoon. I said not yet. She nodded as if that were a complete sentence. In a family that had demanded arrangement and foresight from a woman standing beside a sudden grave, her acceptance felt like a different country—one I was willing to live in.
