At one point, as we all quietly cleaned, I looked over and saw my dad. Kneeling, by himself. Mostly turned away from me. He was looking at his hands. Kind of turning them over, rubbing his fingers together. Looking at that ash. That ash that was my mom. And I remembered: He’d never looked in the box. Not before, not with me, not on this trip. This was the first time he was seeing Mom again. “Hey, baby,” I heard him say, quiet and ragged. So quiet only I could hear. So ragged I had to blink and look away.
😭
