The crowd is thin, a few men from town, a few distant uncles. Sophia arrives with all of her children, who cling to her or climb beneath the chairs and rattle the legs like prison bars. I cannot keep track of them all. She hugs me in close.

“I’m so sorry,” she says into the pink curve of my ear.

But I am no longer in my body. I am orbiting the scene, I am a moon floating above the voices reading the eulogy, above my body as I recite the old poem he loved, above the orchids which turn their deep faces toward my father, the man now made of ash.

VISION

We ring the brass bells three times. The noise echoes through all of the streets in the town. The sound is followed by the quiet of mourning. The sound of the bells rung three times means only one thing: The king has died.

The king’s body is a bed in the sun in the castle. His body is poised in fine garments and capes, although cold. A small stench radiates from him. His crown remains on his resting head.

I kneel beside him with my mother and my brother. We wear bright white gowns to show the velocity of our sadness.

Later, the funeral procession fills the streets. The bodies of men and women press against each other to get a view of my father’s casket. From the carriage, we watch women bellow sobs, and men raise their hands in salute.

“None of them even knew him,” my mother sobs.

The cemetery is lush rolling hills. The green grass is vibrant beneath the blue sky. My father should be buried on a day like this.

The priest says some words over my father’s body, which resides beneath the wood of a coffin that is draped in purple cloth.

They lower my father into the ground and begin to heap dirt over the coffin.

My brother stays silent. He wears a sash over his suit, sadness and a new future in his eyes.

A WEEK LATER, WE SELL THE ACRES AT auction. One of the town’s new young businessmen buys it all.

“How does the Meat Quarry look these days?” he asks me over the table of our legal documents, a flirt in his eyes.

I picture the quarry: faded red, lifeless, dried-up meat.

“You’ll see for yourself,” I say.

I GUT THE WHITE HOUSE WITH MY brother. My mother goes into town to drink or rests in her bed.

We tear down the curtains, take off the white linens, roll up the rugs. The process takes days. I move through them muted, dismantling every bed, shuffling through photographs, selling off the furniture, piece by piece.

Sometimes in my sweat, I look up at him.

“Don’t do anything stupid, OK?” I say.

I stare him deep in the eyes, too, so he knows what I mean.