Ceremony, barbecue, so it went. First the ceremony, then the meal.
On the bridge it was cold like you wouldn’t believe. I didn’t mind that, though, that factor, the wind. Because it kept everything short and to the point, making the longer thing the meal. Which was nice. Your dad didn’t grill this time, we went out to a grill so that nobody would have to work, that’s what they said, so that your mom wouldn’t have to wash any dishes. So we went to the one on the boulevard, which wasn’t that good, apparently they have a new owner now, but that didn’t really matter. Your sister was there, although as soon as she was finished—she didn’t eat much—she went ahead and left; and my dad came too, but by himself. I didn’t know he was going to be there, apparently your mom had invited him, a surprise of sorts, I’m not quite sure for whom. Me, I guess. I got sort of slammed from all sides today, although none of it could take me down. I didn’t shed a single tear, even if I would have liked to. It did affect me, I won’t deny that, especially there on the bridge, since the launch thing was my doing, scattering you into a free fall, and I had that image in my head of that Chinese girl falling in among the clouds, I couldn’t help but feel things, but I guess I felt so much I didn’t cry. I guess it would have been cheesy to cry, or like, redundant. Or like I suggest the ceremony and then collapse, around your parents—it wouldn’t have looked right. It was more of an internal commotion, being moved inside, as though something, your ashes, was plunging down while falling, as though falling inside me, as well, as though I had fallen backwards into my own depths, or something, with no gravity. That persisted awhile, that sensation, that of falling inside myself and continuing to fall, while the thing with the ashes couldn’t have taken more than a couple of seconds, that’s what I mean, your vanishing act, which just took a couple of seconds to complete. One two three and they were gone, and you couldn’t distinguish a single particle of anything, of that, that matter, you. No one said anything, we didn’t move during the descent or the evaporation or I guess I don’t know what to call it, during the thing, and then we stayed a little longer just like that, the wind was awful, sharp, it sliced into your neck, but I was wearing a hood. Until your sister said we had to go, that she was freezing to death, and we got into the car, the four of us and your grandma, who didn’t say anything at any point. I don’t think she fully understood what all was going on. Can’t blame her. And from there we went to the restaurant. My dad was dressed up, with a few days’ worth of facial hair, but very well-groomed. Clothes ironed and painstakingly coordinated, a senior ladies’ man. The Carmen factor. He barely drank any wine and talked a lot with your parents, about various things, other things. I didn’t have much to say, I really didn’t, and nobody asked me much of anything either. I was such a kid in that context, with all those grown-ups. Which allowed me to be quiet, to not have an opinion about anything awhile, I probably could have even fallen asleep with my head on the table or sprawled out over some chairs and nobody would have even batted an eyelash. As a matter of fact I was on the verge of doing so, that’s how much I was feeling the kid thing. Then we took your grandma to her nursing home, and she kept on wanting to know where she was going, poor thing, that was a difficult part of the day, with her wanting to know if we were going back to her house or where, and your dad saying, no, Mom, don’t you remember, you’re living in a home now, with Flavia, the nurse, who’s eagerly expecting you, remember the nurse you like so much, who makes you laugh, and your grandmother saying nothing, very absorbed, not understanding what she was being told, sticking her hand in her purse to fish around for the keys to the house she no longer has. I stayed silent on the drive back too, all of us were silent, we dropped my dad at his house, and I lay down to sleep awhile, still fully dressed, here in your bed, I couldn’t take any more, I didn’t want to think, I really just didn’t want to keep thinking. I had very turbulent dreams, the kind you have during a nap sometimes. I was awakened by nightfall.
When I got up I felt an overwhelming anguish, unbearable, so bad I couldn’t see straight. Sunday nights are sufficiently intolerable in themselves, even when you sense them coming, as night approaches; but having the bad luck to wake up in the middle of a Sunday evening that’s already in full swing, already going on, with night just there—there’s nothing that compares with that. I stayed seated on the edge of the bed for a few seconds or minutes, not comprehending what time it was. I saw that the clock said seven thirty, but I didn’t know if it was morning or night, I couldn’t figure out when I’d fallen asleep in the end. The light from outside didn’t really help me either, the semidarkness could have corresponded to the beginning of the day just as much as to its end. What settled it was Ali: Ali wasn’t there, and then she came in, just then, coming right into the middle of my mental fog and rubbing up against me, very awake, very alert. In the mornings she wakes up with me, so I figured it must be night. So it was still—ugh—the same day. Still the twenty-eighth of August. I went to the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, verified that I was overheated and that I had a big crease from the blanket running down my left cheek. My hair was matted and sticking straight up. I tried to flatten it with a little water, brushed my teeth, put my jacket on, and went out to Vanina’s bar.
My life is not what one would term heroic.