Page 176 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

slipped slowly into the shadows, spending more and more
time alone in her room; she endured this way for 25 years, all
but invisible to the people around her. Harry’s father died of
a massive heart attack a few years after he retired, worn but
forgiving.

* * *

Of all the memories he could possibly dredge up about his
mother, why this, Harry wondered, standing alone at the edge
of the pond. Why this? Why now? But before he could even
consider an answer, he was interrupted by one his friends com-
ing toward him from the other side of the pond.

“Well,” his friend said, smiling at Harry, “she must have
been a pretty decent woman.”
“What do you mean?” Harry asked.

“She raised you, didn’t she?” he said. “Without her, we
wouldn’t have you as our friend.” He put his arm around Har-
ry’s shoulders.

Standing by the water’s edge with his friend by his side,
Harry watched his mother’s ashes float on the surface of the
water like pond scum, moving slowly downwind to where a
small stream carried them away forever.

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