As they enter the stone building, the funeral director is waiting for them in the front lobby, dressed in a dark suit and tie. His wisps of grey hair are smoothed over his speckled rose scalp. His neck bulges over his collar.

He welcomes them with a slight bow and a thin smile. There is an enigmatic look in his eyes, some mysterious combination of pity and perplexity. He leads them through a set of French doors. The chapel is large, with high ceilings and maroon carpeting. Rows of wooden benches line the aisle, and at the end, rests a mahogany casket.

At first sight of it, Kavita’s legs feel boneless. She gropes for Nirav’s arm. They are told to take as long as they wish before the funeral director shuts them inside the dreadful room. If there is a moment when Kavita’s heart breaks irreparably, it is then, as she witnesses her parents break right before her eyes.

Her mother runs her hands along the casket in a stupor, as though trying to see Sunil’s body through the wood grain. At his feet, she pauses. Slowly drapes herself over the casket. Kisses his feet in an act of prostration, supplication. Her weeping echoes against the vaulted ceiling, echoes inside Kavita’s hollow middle, the awful sound spreading cracks along her veins. Her skin is the only thing keeping her together.

Her father delicately lays flowers on the coffin lid above Sunil’s heart, places one hand over his head, and gently strokes the mahogany, as though stroking Sunil’s brow, like he did on the nights Sunil had trouble sleeping when he was a child. His shoulders begin to shake. “My baby,” he whispers. “My boy.”

There is cruelty in having Sunil back, less then a foot beneath their aching palms, and yet still so far away. If only they could see him, touch him. But the coffin shows them concretely what they have known abstractly for days. There is a barrier between them now, and there is only one way to cross it.

Oh Sunil, Kavita whispers as the first tears crest. What have you done to yourself? My poor Bear. Look what you’ve done to yourself.

Into the coffin, she sends a stream of regret. You’ll never marry the woman of your dreams. Or have children. Or teach them to skip stones. You’ll never meet your nieces and nephews. Or hear them call you Sunil mama. And they’ll never know their uncle….

She stops. The coffin is too small to contain all the dreams that should have been, had he lived.