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She leaves the room as I cup my hands, picking up ashes and depositing them back into the bottom part of the urn.
There’s a noise behind me, and before I can even process what’s happening, Darla is next to me sucking up his ashes into a handheld vacuum cleaner.
I push it away. “No! Stop it!” I rip the vacuum out of her hand and look into the clear collection container that is filled with dust, hair, even a few bugs. And now, my Christopher.
Sobbing, I lean back against the sofa, vacuum in hand so she can’t suck up any more.
“What the heck is wrong with you?” she asks, looking at me like I’m a crazy woman. “Does my dad know about this mental instability, or have you been hiding it from him?”
I draw more of the ashes on the floor into a small pile. “This isn’t s-sand. It’s C-Christopher.”
She looks at me, confused. “Who’s Christopher?”
I touch the broken remains of the urn. “My son.”
She gasps. And that’s when I see it. Empathy. I see it along with all the other qualities she’s never displayed in front of me but that Asher keeps telling me she has.
“Oh my god. Seriously?” She looks at the vacuum cleaner in horror. “I… I didn’t know.”
I shake my head, still crying. “It’s not your fault. It was an accident.”
She sits next to the coffee table, drawing her knees up to her chest, clearly unsure what she should do.
Asher never told her. Just like he said he wouldn’t. He wanted me to tell her in my own time. I guess it’s time.
“I was nineteen. I hid the pregnancy from everyone because I knew he was sick. He had what you call a chromosomal anomaly that is incompatible with life.” I absently sweep more ashes into the pile. “He only lived for thirty-one hours.”
“Does my dad know?”
I nod.
She looks down at my stomach and swallows like her world just turned upside down.
“Don’t worry. They don’t have it. They’re fine.”
She stands, clearly not knowing what to say. “I’ll go make dinner.”
I nod again, staring at the floor.
I don’t even say anything when she takes the small vacuum with her. I know I’d never be able to bring myself to empty it into the trash myself. And maybe she knows it too.
When I look up, she’s walking away, but she turns once and looks right at me. “I’m really sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“No. I mean I’m sorry about Christopher.”
It’s now when it dawns on me that she’s no stranger to infant death. Bug’s own cousin died as a baby when she must have been only ten. I’m sure she saw how destroyed Marti was when it happened. She may well be one of the only thirteen-year-olds who could understand. And that understanding is written all over her face.
For the next hour, I meticulously clean up the rest of Christopher’s ashes, putting them in a sealed bag until I can get another urn. This time, I’m going to have his name engraved on it.
I can’t get myself to unpack anymore. I take a nap instead. And I sleep for hours, right through dinner.
When I finally get up and go to the kitchen, there’s a note that my dinner is in the warming drawer. But it’s not the note and the dinner that mean anything to me. It’s the small baggie next to the note. I can see what’s in it plain as day. She must have spent hours going through the contents of the vacuum container, because I can’t see one single hair, dust mote, or carpet fiber. What’s inside is all Christopher.
A single tear rolls down my cheek.
Because this girl who hates me has just done the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.