When I had implied I was maybe too weak to plan the whole thing, Julia offered wholeheartedly to undertake the task, and I agreed. She consulted me, of course—which kind of flowers, how did I feel about having the ceremony on a boat, was there anything else I wanted to include—and I replied in short answers, stressing only that I wanted all the guests dressed formally, as if for a grand party. She made a little noise with her throat and began to point out something or other but gave up, and I told her, for the first time, that I loved her. She released a warble coo and emphasized that she loved me as well, and I thought of her decades ago framed by the sunlight in their kitchen with the phone cord wrapped around and around her fingers, her morning hair still gnarled in the back where she’d slept on it and her wrapping her robe tighter and tighter around herself and rejoicing in new and tiny folds of warmth. About how she had run away to Mexico, once James and Jackson were grown, bought a surplus of bright-colored dresses and went dancing, realized that was all she had needed, really, and come back to Madrone Street and moved in with my father.

Julia must have read somewhere about the flowers and the baguettes; it was too bizarre an idea (especially given the context) on its own. She asked James and Jackson to poke the holes with a large serrated knife and invited me to put the bouquets inside them. The wind from the bay bit the back of my neck and I shrugged and trusted her, though in truth the whole loaves of sourdough bread made my mouth water and I wanted to fill myself with them instead of their sliced counterpart on the slightly swaying snack table. It was supposed to be the opening event, us his official and unofficial children placing the bread in the water. But the flowers didn’t stay upright, and the waves beneath tugged at the stems and deconstructed the bouquetlike quality above, and everyone in attendance stopped watching and thumbed the memorial pamphlet once again or excused themselves to the small bathroom beneath the deck, where the smells of cleaning products and years of brine played equal parts and the toilet roared when it flushed.

Here my memory fails me. I know I was handed the ashes and I know I looked to James and Jackson and they both nodded encouragingly. I know I strangely felt the need for proper etiquette and looked out at everyone and thanked them for coming. I know I expected something much finer and winced at the coarseness and the clumps of what must have been bone; I know that James and Jackson each put a hand on my shoulder blade for each parent I was now without; I know that on the drive home I insisted we stop for the authentic saltwater taffy that tourists pay top dollar for and Julia falsified enthusiasm; I know I stuffed my face with the ocean until I was so thirsty I couldn’t imagine a time I hadn’t been and remembered something my father used to say with a mirthful twist of his lips when a lightbulb when out: “It is until it isn’t.”

I asked to sleep in his room. Julia kept insisting that if I even slightly did not feel up to going through my father’s things that she would of course keep them safe. It was unspoken, but Julia wanted to go on fingering his neatly hung sweaters and alphabetized books, imagining the names of people in boxes of photographs she’d never seen before, and so when I said that yes, I might like to wait, she beamed and squeezed my shoulder. And so I resolved to leave all the proof for future perusal, mine the memories later. I found myself more interested in the utilitarian or recent objects he’d left behind, anyway: the razor that still held his hair, the keys he had turned in the sticky lock not four days ago, the Post-it he had placed on his bedroom mirror that read, inexplicably: AND WHERE WERE THE ALLIGATORS?! a private joke with himself I would never understand.

I sat on his carefully made bed, feeling the firmness my father had slept on, looked at the ceiling he’d memorized with years of insomnia. On his bedside table was his wallet, the same he’d used for years. I found his most recent video store receipt, noted how well-worn his library card, removed the store of photos from their bulging plastic envelopes. My mother covered in yellow paint in our kitchen, grinning and holding the roller as if it was a trophy; Jackson and me as toddlers naked in a bathtub with bubble beards; his mother and father in 1940s church attire; James and his Godzilla in our front yard, looking ominous and not interested in the camera; every school photograph I’d ever taken. Hidden away in the folds were even more pictures: friends dead for decades, a face I recognized as a Frenchwoman he’d had a torturous affair with by the name on the back. I looked at every business card and unfolded every piece of paper. One, a scrap of a legal pad that I took at first for another private reference or corner of his brain, featured a bullet list with accompanying value symbols, names, and email addresses, and I understood quickly that these were the identities of the people who’d bid on Jackson’s work. I returned everything else hastily and entered the living room, where James was sleeping with Jackson on the small futon. I nearly woke them to share my discovery, but instead I got in between their bodies and waited, stiffly, to understand what had changed with the departure of my father. As if feeling my warmth through their dreams, they made small adjustments, turned to me in increments that were small until they weren’t—it isn’t until it is—until both had draped their limbs around mine so intricately that I couldn’t move if I tried and I fought off sleep vehemently, determined to appreciate what they gave me without my even asking.