The cremation.

The dozens of calls to relatives, each of which I made in my steadiest voice, because someone had to.

And at the wake, standing beside the urn I had chosen, in the black I had bought for a funeral I had planned by myself, I was the one his family came for.

“How could she let her only son miss his own mother’s funeral?” I heard Julian’s aunt, Patricia, whisper — loudly, in the way of a person who intends to be overheard — to another relative.

“A devoted wife,” said his uncle Richard, gravely, “would have found a way to reach him.

That’s all I’ll say.