I hold out my hand and he puts the phone in it. The woman talks to me. I hear mass grave. That’s all I hear. Nate takes the phone from me when I lower it. The woman is still talking. The word sanitation flows into the kitchen.

Hannah looks at me. Mom’s face and hair and smile. She is Mom incarnate, and it hurts so much to look at her.

“A … mass…” I take a breath. “She was in a mass grave.”

Hannah crumples, and Drew holds her up, gets her to the couch in the living room.

The only mass grave I ever saw was in a history book. Of the Shoah. Jews, in Dachau. My mom was in something like that. A body that had DNA samples collected from it by people in HAZMAT suits, maybe, then was tagged for later identification before being placed in a black or orange or white body bag.

Is she still in the bag?

I know she’s gone, but I keep thinking how hard it will be for her to breathe in there.

Ben’s arms go around me, and I hide in him. I want to stay here forever, in this place of coffee and wind.

“I don’t know why I’m feeling so…” I push my forehead into his chest. “I thought—I’d hoped she’d just floated on the sea. With him. And he’s … Where is he?”

I knew it wasn’t possible, wasn’t likely, that they would be together. But knowing they weren’t … I suppose I had engaged in magical thinking. Or a suspension of disbelief. If you don’t know for certain, you can imagine the best outcome of the worst situation.

I look up at Ben. “I didn’t let myself imagine them dying. I wouldn’t. And now—my mind won’t stop. They weren’t together, Ben. They died alone.”

He rests his forehead against mine. He doesn’t say anything, but he is like the rocks he studies, so solid and warm.

The garage door shudders, then the back door opens and Aunt Nora comes in with grocery bags. Uncle Tony is behind her. They stop talking. They stare at us.

Nate hangs up the phone. “They found Aunt Lila,” he says, so soft, so gentle.

But still, Aunt Nora drops her groceries and the eggs break.

There’s crying.

She is pulling me to her.

Later—I don’t know when; I have lost the ability to organize time or anything, but at some point, Ben materializes from a corner, says something to Nate, crosses to me.

“Mae. Should I go? I don’t want to intrude. Whatever you need—”

I slide my arms around Ben’s waist and rest my cheek against his chest. His arms immediately come around me. Oxytocin and vasopressin.

“Don’t go,” I whisper.

“I think those might be my favorite words now,” he says.