by Benjamin Woodard
Your dad decided to unwind with close friends after the service, which left you and I to transport the ashes of your mom—boxed up, waiting in a mauve paper bag—back to her house, where only a week earlier the woman had painted the kitchen walls banana yellow. I lifted the bag by its handles, surprised by the heft, while you said goodbye to family. Of the hundreds of photos on display in the funeral home, not a single one contained both your mom and I: no surprise, really, since we never had much to talk about, despite our knowing each other for twenty years. Even so, I placed one protective hand on the bottom of the bag and rested the weight against my chest, fearful of the handles giving way, of a drop, of a gray cloud across the patterned carpet. This cradling, I knew, was the most intimate moment I would ever share with this woman who I never understood, and who never understood me. Stepping out onto the asphalt parking lot, I heard cars passing, you laughing, engines coming to life, and when I opened the rear door of our sedan, without a second thought, I buckled your mom in for the ride home.
Benjamin Woodard’s fiction has appeared in journals like Joyland and SmokeLong Quarterly, as well as in the 2019 and 2021 editions of Best Microfiction: benjaminjwoodard.com
