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[continued from page 2]
* * * * *
Eventually, I got up and carried the urns to their bedroom. Using a screwdriver and a strength I didn’t know I possessed, I wedged open the lids, as if opening a bucket of paint. Inside each urn was a plastic bag, and inside each bag were ashes, bits of black and gray. I pulled back the bedspread and emptied the remains onto the sheets, one urn on the left side, the other urn on the right. Then I closed the door and went across the hall to my childhood room. Sitting atop the bedspread was Poor Pitiful Pearl, clothed in an olive-colored dress. I hadn’t seen her in decades, but here she now was, resurrected.
I picked her up and clutched her.
Underneath the covers, we closed our eyes and slept.
* * * * *
In the morning, I found my mother in the kitchen, mashing potatoes in the electric mixer. She was wearing a red blouse, ivory skirt, and matching red-and-ivory heels.
“I knew it!” I cried, wrapping my arms around her waist. “I knew it!”
“Good morning,” she said and gave me a peck on the lips.
“For a second—“
“Shh.”
“I almost—”
“No,” she said.
I remembered all the people I’d called, telling them of the accident.
“You’ll just have to call them back,” my mother said. “Tell them there’s been a change of plans.”
I laughed. I felt light-headed, almost giddy.
“OK,” my mother said, turning off the mixer. “Are we ready? Go get your dad.”
“You’ll be right here?” I asked. “If I leave and come back?”
“Go on,” my mother said. “Don’t be silly.”
My father was in bed, lying on top of the sheets, arms stiff at his sides. He was dressed in a navy suit and had ashy smudges on his cheeks. He waved when I entered the room.
“You slept in your suit?” I asked.
“I believe in making a good appearance.”
“I had the most horrible dream,” I told him, kneeling beside the bed.
“But now you’re awake,” he said.
“It felt so real.”
“You were sleeping.”
“I thought—“
“No thinking. Give me a peck.”
I leaned forward and kissed him where I always kissed him, right in the middle of the forehead.
“Ah, Bumblebee. I missed you.”
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