She was smiling in it, her chin tipped up toward the sun.

I used to speak aloud to her when the house got too quiet.

That night I couldn’t find a sentence that wouldn’t betray her memory.

At last I whispered, “I saw her.”

The room answered with the soft hum of the refrigerator.

I looked at the urn beside the photograph and realized I didn’t know what, if anything, it contained.

That was the moment my confusion began turning into purpose.