I take the cart from Mom and wheel around to the next aisle. I grab something off the shelf and head for the checkout. Mom calls to me from somewhere inside the store. I hear her voice getting closer until she finds me on my way out the door.
“Were you just going to leave me here?” she asks, walking briskly to keep up with me.
“I knew you’d catch up,” I say, sliding into the driver’s seat.
I drop her off at her house—making sure to hand her the bag with the pie and the noodles.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“I have to pick up a few things.”
“We were just at the store,” she says, hesitating to get out of the car.
I wave her out and reach over to close the door behind her. She jumps out of the way so as not to get clipped in the rump. She stands in her driveway looking at me indignantly and then winks.
“Come with me,” I say to Jack when he opens the door.
There’s one injustice that still needs to be undone in order to have a proper Thanksgiving Day. I take Jack by the arm, pulling him through the door and out to my car. I slide in and start the engine. Jack opens the passenger door and gets inside even as I’m pulling the car away from the curb. He doesn’t ask where we’re going. He doesn’t say anything at all. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him looking at me. We drive in silence. Finally, we pull off the road and pass through the predictable iron gates of the cemetery.
“What are we doing here?” Jack utters the words so slowly they don’t seem to go together in the same sentence.
I kill the engine and get out. I open the trunk like we’re in some bad movie and pull out a shovel. I’m manic with the idea of this shovel, which I’d stuck in the trunk last winter, before Dad passed, after spending the day planting bulbs in mom’s yard—those pink and white tulips that seemed so out of place in front of the house the day of the funeral. Turns out you don’t need a shovel this big to plant bulbs.
I walk into the graveyard like a woman possessed, unnecessary shovel in hand, and mind determined to undo what never should have been done. Jack catches up to me when I stop at my dad’s headstone. He takes the shovel from me and spades the edge into the ground.
“What are we doing here?” he asks again, more firmly this time.
I’ve finally figured out what has been pecking at my ribs all this time. I know now what will begin to make this better.
“We’re digging up my father’s ashes,” I say.
“Oh, Nina, no.”
“It’s cathartic,” I say, and grab the spade from the earth. “Besides, isn’t this the sort of wild and crazy thing that people do when they’re grieving the loss of their dad and rejoicing because their child almost died but didn’t?”
“No, this isn’t the sort of wild and crazy thing that people do,” he says, calmly. “This is what lunatics do. This is what psychos in the movies do.” He grabs the shovel away from me.
“Just start digging.” I point to the gray stone marker that bears my father’s name.
“Look, Nina, if you’re trying to take the heat off Ray by being the crazy one at dinner,” Jack says, looking from me to the headstone, “I think you can let him fend for himself.”
I grab the shovel back from him. “Give me some credit, please.”
“That’s really hard to do when you drag me out to a cemetery on Thanksgiving Day and ask me to help you dig up your father’s ashes,” he says, talking to me like I’m four years old.
We both stand there looking at each other, at the shovel, at the name—Nathaniel Baker. Beloved Father. Cherished Husband.
I take out my phone and find the picture of the grave. I hold it out to the real thing and compare the image. I point to the spot where the urn is buried. I look around to see if anyone is watching, spending the holiday with a dead loved one.
“Why did you guys bury the ashes?” Jack speaks softly, breaking the stillness around us. “Aren’t you supposed to put them somewhere important?”
I look at him and burst into tears.
“Oh,” he says.
He takes the shovel from me and starts digging. That’s when I start to think there might be hope for us yet.
When we hear the clink of shovel against metal, we both get down on our hands and knees. Like kids digging in the sand at the beach, we swipe at the dirt, brushing it away until we’ve reached our goal. Dad’s urn.
Jack pulls Dad from the earth and hands him to me. We sit there looking at each other and then Jack voices what I’m thinking.
“Run,” he says, and we do.
By the time we reach the car, we’re laughing and panting. I hold Dad close with one hand and reach in my pocket for the keys with the other. Jack takes the urn from me and sets it on top of the car. I make a move to reach for it, and Jack takes my hand.
“Your father is fine,” he says and steps in close, pressing me up against the side of the car.
Jack runs his finger over my wedding rings and then brushes a strand of hair from my face. His body is warm against me. He leans in close, brushing his lips across the edge of my ear.
“We forgot the shovel,” he says, his words brushing against my skin.
“Never mind it,” I say, my heart racing.
“It looked like a good shovel,” Jack says and kisses my neck.
I can’t breathe. I pull in little ragged tufts of air.
“It’s yours,” I whisper, breathlessly.
“I know.”
“You want to go get it?” I press my body harder against his.
“No,” he says. “I want to kiss you.”
“Ok,” I say into
