Chapter 5: Friday

Friday the cooler is full.

Your father unpacks it on the break room table. Two sandwiches. Two apples. Two ginger ales. But also: brownies. Four brownies. Wrapped in foil. Homemade. Chocolate with walnuts.

Your mother's brownies.

Your father made them. Last night. After you left. He used her recipe. The recipe card in her handwriting. Faded blue ink. Grease stains. He followed the instructions. He baked them. He wrapped them. He packed them.

He hands you a brownie.

You take it. The foil is still warm.

You unwrap it. The chocolate smells right. The texture looks right. You bite into it. It tastes like every birthday. Every Christmas. Every time your mother said: I felt like baking. It tastes like being twelve years old and coming home from school to find the kitchen full of the smell of butter and sugar and something made just because she wanted to make it.

Your father bites into his brownie. He chews. He swallows. He takes another bite.

You both eat brownies. You both drink ginger ale. You both do not talk.

When you finish, your father packs the foil back into the cooler. He says: I am going to keep making them. Her recipes. The brownies. The pot roast. The lemon chicken. All of it. I am going to cook them and we are going to eat them.

You say: okay.

He says: she is not here. But the food is. The food she taught me. The food she made. I can keep that alive.

You say: yeah. You can.

He nods. He stands. He walks to his office. You follow. He opens the bottom drawer of his desk. He lifts out the box. Your mother. Eight pounds. He sets it on the desk.

He says: I want to scatter some of her. Not all. Some. Here. At work. In the weighing room.

You say: why.

He says: because this is where I spent my life. This is where the work is. She understood the work. She never asked me to stop. She knew the dead need someone to weigh them. Someone to record them. Someone to witness that they existed. She let me do that. I want her to be part of it.

You say: okay.

He opens the box. Inside is ash. Gray-white. Fine. Mixed with larger pieces. Bone fragments. The part that will not burn. He reaches in. He takes a handful. You take a handful. You both walk to the weighing room.

You stand by the scale. The scale where you have weighed five thousand bodies. The scale where you learned that death has weight and weight is the only truth that cannot lie.

Your father opens his hand. The ash falls. It drifts. Some lands on the scale. Some lands on the floor. Some lands on your shoes.

You open your hand. Your mother falls. She drifts. She lands. She mixes with the dust that is already there.

Your father says: twenty-one grams leave. Everything else stays.

He walks to the sink. He washes his hands. You wash yours. The water runs gray. Then clear. You both use brown paper towels. You both throw them away.

A body arrives. Heart attack. Seventy-eight years old. Died in his garden.

Your father and you lift the body. Transfer it to the scale. One-nine-two. You write it down. You tag the toe. You slide the drawer shut.

The metal sounds like a drawer closing. But also like a drawer opening.

Your mother is ash. Your mother is in the drawer in your father's desk and on the floor of the weighing room and in the brownies you just ate and in the way your father washes his hands.

She is twenty-one grams gone. She is everything else that remains.

Your father strips off his gloves. He looks at you. He says: thank you for this week.

You say: for what.

He says: for being here. For showing up.

You say: you taught me that. You taught me to show up. To witness. That is what you do.

He nods. His face is steady. His hands are steady. You are both men who weigh the dead. Who record the weight. Who keep going.

Friday ends.

Monday you will both return. You will unpack the cooler. You will weigh the bodies. You will tag toes. You will witness.

This is the work.

Your mother weighs eight pounds now. She used to weigh ninety-four. The difference is what leaves. The twenty-one grams. The breath. The warmth.

But the recipes remain. The brownies remain. The way she let your father do this work remains.

You walk to the break room. Your father follows. You both sit at the folding table. The Mr. Coffee gurgles. The lights hum. The refrigerator units hum.

Your father drinks coffee.

You drink coffee.

The dead wait in their drawers.

The scale waits for the next body.

Everything waits.

Everything weighs.

Everything remains.