In a small pack on my back, I carry a cylindrical biodegradable bamboo urn that contains my mother’s ashes. They’re surprisingly heavy, a human’s ashes.
My mother died twelve months ago today. The whole process leading up to her death has messed me up, and it’s not done messing yet. My mother’s voice curls through my mind as I seek for the right place to scatter what remains of her.
“You had such promise, Katarina. You were top of your class in mathematics, in chemistry, physics. You won the English essay contest. You were on the honor roll. You could have been anything you wanted, but now you are a maid, cleaning up after other people.”
“You also cleaned houses, Mom. I take after you.”
“Your father and I, we immigrated, Katarina, so you wouldn’t grow up like us. We did it foryou. We struggled foryou. I cleaned houses and hotel rooms for you. All for you. Everything. And look at what you have done to us.”
Then my mother got sick.
Really sick.
I tried to help. I tried to stop it from getting worse. I drove her to all her doctor appointments and scans and blood tests. We spent whole days at the cancer center for chemo. Nothing stopped it.
She went into hospice. She died. All within eight months from diagnosis. I didn’t think it would be such a shock, or that I would actually miss her moaning and chastising so much. Maybe she’s scolding my father in heaven right now, wagging her rough, chapped cleaner’s hands at him. I can almost hear her voice in that Ukrainian accent that never left her: “Oh, Pavlo, justlookat our daughter we have left behind on this earth. She is in her thirties, Pavlo, and still she cleans other people’s houses—”
“How about here?” Boon asks, interrupting my mother inside my head.
I turn to see where he’s pointing. Rain drips from the bill of my cap. It drips from the sad, heavy branches of the deep-green forest. It feels as though it drips from my heart.
“Bit of a steep drop,” I say, peering cautiously over the edge of the cliff as I hold on to Boon’s sleeve. “Those rocks along the ledge down there look slippery. I don’t want to go over the cliff and into the water with her ashes. ’Cause that would really make her day.”
He laughs. Boon has this really strange, distinctive laugh. Once you hear it, you’ll recognize it anywhere. It reminds me of a whooping crane when he gets wound up. Or nervous. I don’t often see Boon nervous, but when he is, he laughs and cranks up into the high whooping sound. It always makes me smile, although I know others find it intensely annoying.
“You talk like she’s still watching you,” he says.
“She’s always watching me. She’s inside my head.”
“See?” Boon says. “It’s you—you are the problem. Not her. It’s never been about her. She’s just the internalized voice of your own conscience, and you have named your conscience, your inner judge, ‘Mom.’”
“Oh, don’t you start, too, Boon.” I’m getting enough of this stuff from my therapist. I start to walk away, but stop and abruptly spin around to face him. I lean forward and lock my gaze onto his. He takes a slight step back in surprise. I narrow my eyes and glower into his. I make my expression—my whole body posture—intense, aggressive. His smile fades. He takes another small step backward, closer to the slick rock edge.
“What are you doing, Kit?”
“Is she insideyounow, Boon?” I point at his nose. “Is that you in there, Mom?” I step closer to him. “Have you possessed Boon—are you inhabiting Boon’s body, Mamma?”
“Cut that out.”
“Ha—you’re spooked!” I slap my thigh.
“I am not. And you need to grow up.”
“Now you sound like my dad.”
“And when did you last hear your dad speak? He died like ten years ago, didn’t he? You always told me it was just you and your mom after that.”
I shrug and start back along the twisting trail above the water. Far below, the waves make little suck-and-slap noises. Boon follows in the wet mud behind me, his steps making a slurpy sound. My boot dislodges small stones. They clatter down the rock face. He’s right, though. I did hear my dad again. Coming right out of the past. Taking me back to when I was sixteen.“You need to grow up and take some responsibility, Katarina. Always lies. Lies, lies, lies. You are disgusting, Katarina. You whore. You have disgraced this family. Do you know that? You have shamed our entire family—”
I walk faster. A more purposeful stride.
I hear my mother countering him.“Leave Katarina alone.”
The balloon of grief in my chest suddenly explodes. Tears surge to my eyes, and I feel like this thing is going to consume me. Lives gone. Opportunities gone. I failed them. I’ve failed me. And I am thankful for the rain—the insidious coastal mist of a rain that hides the salty wetness on my face.
I stumble slightly on an exposed root. Catching myself, I glance up. And I see it—a wooden bench bolted into a smooth slab of rock that looks out over the gunmetal sea.
“This,” I say, turning to Boon, “this is the spot.”
