My mother dumped my baby’s ashes into the toilet because she said my grief was “bad energy” for my pregnant sister. The urn slipped from my hands, but I didn’t scream or beg. I walked straight to the kitchen, took my father’s phone, and decided that if they could erase my son, I would destroy the life they had built on appearances.
The empty urn struck the tile and spun in an uneven circle before coming to rest against the leg of the kitchen table. For a moment, I could still hear the toilet flushing in the downstairs bathroom, as if my mother hadn’t just erased the last physical trace of my son.
“You’re making the house depressing,” she said from the hallway, drying her hands on a dish towel like she had just finished an ordinary task. “Your sister’s pregnant. She doesn’t need this energy.”
