Ashes, Ashes

1 - The Promise

Everybody loved Laurel Williams.

There was just something about her, something that pulled you in and made you want to do things for her. And I don't just mean in a sex way, although that was part of it, too. She had her share of admirers and suitors, all through college, and after, guys and girls alike. But it went deeper than that, the magnetism she had. 

She was someone who could make you do things. Who could make you want to do things. 

--- 

No. Scratch that. Start over. 

-- 

Laurel had never wanted a funeral.

We only talked about it once. Our senior year of college, just before Thanksgiving, her mom had finally lost a years-long battle with cancer, and Laurel and I road-tripped up to her hometown for the memorial service. Everybody thought we were dating back then, but it was never like that. Just roommates, close friends. But everybody figured that if you were close to Laurel, you wanted to be with her, because how could you not? She was smart and gorgeous and had this confidence about her, and everybody who met her fell in love. That was just her way.

But I never wanted her like that, and maybe that's why we stayed friends so long.

Anyway.

We'd driven up together, and I stayed with her through the funeral, trying not to intrude on the family grief. Laurel sat beside me, silent, her jaw a hard line, tension running through her slender shoulders. Everywhere else, people were sad and crying, but Laurel looked angry. 

Afterward, we went for drinks, and there was something hard in her eyes even before the rounds set in, the whiskey giving that glassy edge to her stare. "It's all bullshit," she said.

"What is?"

"Funerals. Grieving. All of it. It's grotesque." She drained her glass and tapped on the bar for another, her gaze distant and focused on something seemingly only she could see. "The hugging and the crying and the small talk. And the fucking sad music. As if you weren't miserable enough without it."

I stayed silent, because it seemed like there was nothing I could say.

She didn't seem to notice. "Promise me, Logan. Promise me." She turned her eyes on me then, and they blazed with an intensity I'd never seen. "When I die, don't let it be like that. Just, like. Make it a party."

She reached out to grab my arm, her black-painted nails curling into my sleeve, gripping it hard.

"Go out into the woods and scatter my ashes to the wind and then get fucking smashed. Just get everybody together and toast to my honor and make it good. Okay? That's all I want."

I didn't think, at the time, that I'd ever have to make good on that promise. But here we are. 

-- 

No. Again. 

-- 

I have a notebook full of these. Pages of aborted eulogy attempts. Trying a dozen different ways to tell her story and never finding the words. Her official memorial was a week ago, and I hadn't had the courage to say anything then. Not with her relatives looking on. Not with her shy, awkward fans sitting in the back, shifting uneasily as they wondered whether they should be there, whether they had any right. 

As services go, it was all right. Laurel would have hated it, probably, but just as a matter of principle. Nobody prayed, and hardly anybody cried. Somebody read a few quotes from one of her books, which managed to sound inspirational and profound out of context if you didn't know she wrote murder mysteries. There was no casket, and no viewing; just a big photograph of her at the front of the room, her wide teal-blue eyes staring out from between thick mascaraed lashes, her face pale as a ghost even when she was alive. Her hair was a silvery white-blonde in the photo, shaved on one side kept long on the other, showing off the row of piercings in her ear. 

She looked good. Powerful. She would have liked that. 

But that was a week ago, and it wasn't the real funeral. It was just...a community event, I guess. "Local author commits suicide" is a big headline, you can't expect a town not to do something with that. And although there weren't any siblings or parents -- I tried to find her dad, I scoured every inch of social media for a trace of him, but he ghosted right out of her life when she was a baby -- there were still some relatives, aunts and cousins and friends-of-the-family. 

So let them have their memorial. Let them honor her memory however they need to. The real funeral, the time when I have to make good on the promise I made her, is happening today. 

Gather up all of the old crew. Go up to the woods, drink to her honor, and scatter her ashes to the wind. 

I owe her that much.