“We should’ve rented a boat,” she says. “I didn’t think of it before. If we scatter Sunil’s ashes here, they’ll just collect along the shoreline.”

Kavita recalls her recent trip to Muir Woods, and how Hawthorn found the perfect place to scatter Sequoia’s ashes. She imagines the wind moving gently through the canopy with a silvery ruffle, lets her mind’s eye travel along miles and miles of sky-blue ocean. That is what she wants for Sunil. Freedom. Transformation. She wants him to dissolve into these waters, and course as freely as only rivers can, only to rise as a cloud, reaching higher than any hawk could possibly soar.

She takes a step forward. The coolness of the river swallows her ankles. She looks back at her family. She won’t go any farther if they think her idea is silly.

Nirav slips off his shoes and enters the water. Her father follows. And finally, her mother. Her parents link arms. The magic of the river has touched them already. What she has just witnessed is a miracle.

They wade out into the river as naturally as bathers at Ganga ghats, to where the water is thigh-deep. They organize themselves into a shape that mimics a horseshoe. She feels the river ease against the backs of her legs, sensing the encouragement of its forward motion. Let go, the river is telling her. I am here to catch him. I will carry him, always. We are water.

A puff of fine grey dust, like incense ash, releases into the air as Kavita lifts away the lid. Then, she closes her eyes, and recalls one of the Gita passages Hawthorne marked for her, those simple words that gave her perspective, an understanding of samsara, the cosmic wheel of life, when all she could see at the time was death. It cannot be cut or burned, she recites silently. It cannot be wet or withered. It is enduring, all-pervasive. Fixed, immovable, and timeless…. She opens her eyes to the light. Indestructible.

With a gentle shake, she tips the ashes. A powdery cloud forms on the surface of the water, then slowly starts to drift away from them. Little by little, the ashes disappear. As she watches her brother’s remains dissolve below the surface of the dark water, Kavita does what the river whispered.

She lets go. Of all the little anchors that at one time seemed forever hooked to her soul, surrendering them to the swift current, as if tossing stones, an arc of pain that shoots through the air away from her, and sinks out of sight.

What remains is all that is most precious to her.

All the love that will keep her buoyant.

40.