• tab She is smiling. She’s laughing, really. She’s laughing in that silent way that really counts.
    tab There is a mass of trees and vines behind her where pale purple flowers hang. They are the kinds of flowers that bees enjoy buzzing around. I remember avoiding them when I was younger, because I’d always been afraid of bees.
    tab Apparently she’d never been afraid of bees (or anything). If there are any bees there, she doesn’t pay them any mind. Just like she doesn’t pay any mind to the strands of long, brown hair that have flown across her face to stick against her lipgloss. It’s vanilla-cherry flavored. It’s always vanilla-cherry flavored, I don’t need to think about it.
    tab It is a sunny day, of course – and windy, hence the flyaway hair. She’s wearing a beautiful sundress, pale yellow with spots of violet flowers. She’s taken off her shoes and set them by the tree behind her. She looks at me with a laughing face, and laughing eyes, and laughing everything.
    tab She’s laughing, laughing, laughing.

    tab I set the photograph on her coffin before I leave, next to a wreath of pale purple flowers.