The singing bowl rang out, low and resonant, three times. Bodies shifted in their seats. Susan Douglas stood up. Behind her was an altar, where Joan’s ashes were contained in a ceramic urn made by a friend. A small bronze statue of the Buddha was placed nearby, along with several bouquets of flowers. My mother had sent white lilies. I looked up at the vaulted wooden ceiling while Susan Douglas invited us to remember Joan West. She spoke about rejoicing in the positive ways Joan had contributed to the world. Others got up to speak their memories: Great-Aunt Margaret, Aunt Tammy, Dad. I felt like I should say something, but I was terrified I’d do it wrong. My ears were full of a buzzing noise; I couldn’t listen to my dad’s eulogy. I saw the tears on his face. I saw Joan in the studio, telling me she was always making art about time. I don’t understand how it works, but I’m always interested in it.

Susan Douglas was speaking. “All conditioned things are impermanent; they arise and pass away. Understanding this deeply brings the greatest happiness, which is peace.”

Joan had left detailed instructions on the way her ashes were to be scattered. In September, after the public memorial, we would hike out to the Marin Headlands with the urn and a photographer friend of hers. Joan wanted the ashes scattered in a circle, and she wanted the scattering to be photographed.

My hands were so cold.

“Joan’s physical body may be gone now, but who she was is not gone. She was more than her body, just as we are all more than our bodies. She was connected with all of you. You influenced her, and she influenced you, and that influence continues.”

The urn was beautiful. It had a round belly and an elegantly curved neck and a perfectly fitted lid, and it had been glazed in some way that left brilliant sea-green streaks and dark blue flecks on the surface. As if the sea had been burned into the clay.

My stomach was a hollow inside me.

“Everything that Joan taught you goes on. The thoughts that arise in your mind when you think of her are still influenced by her.”

The hollow was growing. I would become a sinkhole.

Susan Douglas lit a candle on the altar. A thin trickle of smoke rose from the match. “Earth returning to earth, fire returning to fire, wind returning to wind, water returning to water.”

—

When it was over, I stood up and turned around. Steph was leaving through the door at the rear of the room.

My stomach lurched back into existence. I grabbed my purse and went after her.

Outside, the late-afternoon light was shining through the pines and redwoods that nestled up close to the brown-shingled building. Steph was walking down the path toward the street. She was leaving without saying a single word to me.