I shook my head. I didn’t say anything.

He said, “When did she do this?”

I was quiet. Still looking. Still wagging my head.

“She’s just been lying here?” he said. “All night?”

I twisted around. “Abe,” I said. “Oh, Abe.”

“Abe what? What the fuck?” He grabbed my hair and pulled up my head so I was eye level with her body. “You have to look.”

I looked at the arm, Tilly’s arm: its streaks of brown blood, its wet show of slivered muscle and wishbone. I looked away. I felt the warmth again, of vomit rising. This time I could feel it in my mouth.

What happens to a body after it dies? This was something we had to figure out.

Tilly stayed in the Lovelock hospital morgue for three days. Her body did. Then she was moved to a funeral home and burned into ash. A man named Bobby helped with logistics. He called himself a death services consultant and wore a blue tie covered with tiny white terriers. His shoes were gleaming as if they’d just been polished. He seemed like a man who was trying to piece his life together after a great fall. I imagined him waking up each morning. Little steps, he’d tell himself. Little steps toward happiness.

We got a plain jar in a plain box. There I was, staring at rows of painted urns and taking her home in a cardboard box. Bobby put his hand on my shoulder. He understood. “It doesn’t make sense to get one of the expensive ones if you’re scattering the cremains.”

Cremains. I couldn’t even say the word. Jokes had been made about it, probably, paper shields against the dumb brute wordlessness of grief.

“Just bring a scoop,” said Bobby. “Most people wouldn’t think to do that.”

The box was sized to hold a cake or pie. It was wrapped in newsprint with no news on it. I imagined an entire day of history erased, ink headlines dissolved off the page by rain or design: COLLEGE MASSACRE KILLS 33. JUSTICE BARRED FROM GUANTÁNAMO. The world was full of wrong things, but I could only feel this one.

We put the box in the car. I fastened one of the back seat belts and then tucked the box under the strap, snug, a tiny rectangular passenger. I like it shuddery. That way you can really feel the ride.

We brought the ashes into the house. It didn’t seem safe to leave them in the car. The sun felt bright enough to burn anything, even ash.

Winnie was sitting at the kitchen table, breastfeeding her baby. She’s upstairs, she’d said earlier, just like that, her voice not cold but curled into a tight space. I found the ugliness of her baby fascinating. All the soft features huddled in its face like they needed shelter.

“She doesn’t like new folks,” Winnie said. “She’ll probably start crying.” But the baby just kept quietly sucking on her mother’s body.