I like the way the writer used sparse language to set a vivid scene and evoke strong feelings in this well-executed flash.
"I hid your father's ashes in the trunk with the tools and apologized to him for wedging the box in sideways," mother tells me near the Sonora Pass. I hadn't known that we were driving here to scatter his remains. "I didn't want to shock you," she says as if his death was a secret. "I'm not sure he's ready to leave me," she adds as I rub sunscreen over her shoulders. I'm angry because I don't want to do this without my sister and brothers.
We didn't know what he wanted but thought we might scatter his remains at sea because he loved boats. You can't do that without a permit, though. Otherwise, I thought, metropolises of ash piling up from the ocean floor might raise sea level and flood the coasts. His remains have been in a plastic box the size of a video rental. A Xerox on the top reads: Do not destroy, burial requests of Aubrey Holman. I wish I hadn't seen his name. My grief is receding and I don't want to call it back.
We stop at a rest area and mother surveys the valley carved into a giant canoe by glaciers. "He'd be worried about the wind sifting him," she says. "And this place isn't good enough."
Back on the road we're stuck in a line of cars and a guy in the pickup behind shouts, "Move for Christ's sake!" as if we could. The next time he screams Mom says, "Let the mountains roar with my laughter. Or some damn thing." I rim her bright red ears with sunscreen and touch her face by the temples. How thin her hair-frost.
Karen Holman is a social worker and an advocate for people with mental illness in Detroit. Summers she tends her native zinnia garden. Winters she enjoys ice sculpture. Her work has aired over NPR as part of the Iowa Radio Project. Her work is forthcoming in the Portland Review and has appeared in Pool, Sentence, Pavement, Berkeley Poetry Review, Distillery, Tattoo Highway, and Yellow Silk. She's served on the editorial staff of Iowa Woman. Ms. Holman graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. She lives with her husband and their delightful cat, Rosalie.