Ashes

by

Cate Kennedy

Ashes Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Chris feels his goodwill dissipating by the time he and his mother stop at a café for morning tea. It’s draining to be in her presence, and that hasn’t changed just because he vowed to be attentive and kind. He knows he’ll feel guilty later, but as he sits and listens to his mother complain about the fake whipped cream on her scones, he can feel his patience evaporating. It’s only 10:30 in the morning. Chris tells himself that he just has to stay on the right side of surliness—and even his mother should forgive him any bad behavior today, given the occasion.
From the start, “Ashes” makes it clear that Chris and his mother have, at best, a strained relationship. Chris seems to struggle to be the kind of son his mother wants (namely, one who’s attentive and willing to listen). But this is, perhaps, not surprising—his mother seems to want things to be perfect all the time, as evidenced by her vocal displeasure about the whipped cream on her scone. This begins to imply that Chris’s mother is perhaps judgmental of him, just as she’s critical of more trivial things in her life, which would explain why he feels the need to alter his behavior to appease her. Meanwhile, Chris’s belief that his mother should forgive him for acting out today, because of the occasion, suggests that Chris and may be spending time with his mother not because he genuinely wants to. Rather, whatever special occasion he’s referring to may have made this meeting obligatory.
Themes
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Chris watches his mother make sure the waitress is looking as she scrapes the whipped cream off her scone. She dressed up and did her hair today; even though Chris told her to wear sensible shoes, she chose a pair of black heels. They’ll have to do some walking, but trying to tell her that didn’t go well. But now, his mother will be able stop on the walk to grimace—and later, she can talk about her blisters with the women at her book club.
This passage hints at a rift in communication between Chris and his mother. His mother seemingly expects others to listen to her, as she wants the waitress to overhear (and care) about her complaints. Yet she doesn’t seem very good at listening herself—for instance, she ignored Chris’s advice about what kind of shoes would be best suited for whatever they’re doing today. Chris suspects that there’s a reason for this: he implies that his mother actually enjoys complaining, as it gives her something to discuss with her friends. But this tendency has seemingly damaged her relationship with Chris, as he finds it frustrating to spend time with her and endure her constant negativity.
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Chris thinks of the “Book Club Women” in “formidable capitals.” The Book Club Women always sit around in modern living rooms, criticizing books. Chris’s mother keeps photos of the women’s grandchildren on her fridge, specifically to torment him every time he walks past.
The way Chris thinks of the “Book Club Women” in “formidable capitals” suggests that they’re an intimidating presence in his life. This is perhaps because his mother and her friends share intimate details about their children and grandchildren with one another, and Chris doesn’t want to be gossiped about. It may or may not be true that Chris’s mother displays photos of her friends’ grandchildren just to torment him—this is Chris’s subjective perception of the situation, after all. But if this is the case, it would suggest that Chris’s mother wants to guilt him about not having children, which would explain why she doesn’t have photos of her own grandchildren on the fridge. This dynamic provides further insight into Chris and his mother’s relationship: although they don’t seem to communicate well, Chris is still well aware of his mother’s disapproval.
Themes
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Sometimes, Chris’s mother tells him news about people he doesn’t know—for instance, she shares that her friend Sandra’s grandson, “little Justin,” recently started his swimming lessons. While Chris is trying to remember who Sandra is, his mother continues onto another tangent about Caroline’s wedding. Caroline apparently wants Pam—her mother and a Book Club Woman—to go up to Brisbane to help with the wedding. But Chris’s mother thinks that Caroline will have to shape up and stop asking her mother for help once she gets married. Then, Chris’s mother pauses and reminds him (as she does every time Caroline is mentioned) that when Caroline was a teenager, the family had to get counseling for her.
Mentioning “little Justin” may be a way for Chris’s mother to needle him about presumably not having children. Given that the story doesn’t mention Chris’s mother having photos of or stories about her own grandchildren, it seems that she’s only able to be a grandparent vicariously, through women like Sandra. Talking about her friends’ grandchildren, then, could be her way of making sure that Chris knows exactly how annoyed she is by this state of affairs. The way Chris’s mother eagerly brings up Caroline, meanwhile, indicates that she probably takes a perverse kind of delight in the failures of her friends’ children. She isn’t sympathetic to the fact that Caroline probably went to therapy because she had mental health issues or another form of personal hardship—instead, she seems to be using Caroline’s slip-up as a way of feeling superior about her own parenting.
Themes
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Chris always nods dutifully and follows his mother’s gaze out the back door. The garden is covered in leaves and now, his mother is considering hiring a gardener to deal with the mess. Chris’s father’s yard tools are propped up behind the locked garden shed.
The way Chris nods without saying anything when his mother brings up people he doesn’t know implies that he thinks it’s futile to voice his opinion. This again hints at a rift in communication between mother and son, as Chris likely stays silent because he believes his mother will shame him for saying what he thinks (perhaps because she’s done so in the past). Meanwhile, the fact that the garden is covered with leaves, coupled with Chris’s father’s neglected yard tools, hint that his father is no longer in the picture. The garden has fallen into a state of neglect, and the way his mother’s gaze lingers on the leaves outside is a subtle indication that she misses his presence in her life.
Themes
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Since his father’s death, Chris feels like he continually comes across reminders of the man. They seem like mousetraps ready to snap, or like landmines. Today, for example, he and his mother are driving his father’s car—his mother insists she can’t bear to sell it. It smells so much like shoe polish and peppermint, and Chris’s father’s tartan scarf is still in the backseat. Every smell and detail assaulted Chris earlier, as he tucked a box in its cotton bag onto the backseat.
This passage confirms what the previous one hinted at: Chris’s father has passed away. When Chris describes reminders of his father as mousetraps or as landmines, it suggests that his memories and his grief are difficult for him to process. They surprise him in a violent way—which perhaps suggests that most of the time, Chris tries to ignore his grief and suppress his emotions. The unpleasant nature of these comparisons with vermin and war could also imply that Chris and his father didn’t have a particularly close or healthy relationship, which is why Chris’s memories of his father are so painful and jarring now. This passage also introduces Chris’s late father’s car as a symbol of the influence that his father still has in his life, regardless of Chris’s efforts to forget the past. Given that Chris’s mother can’t bear to sell the car, she may be trying to hold onto these reminders in any way possible. She and Chris, then, seem to have opposite ways of dealing with grief: his mother wants to cling onto happy memories, whereas Chris wants to avoid the pain that remembering the past stirs up.
Themes
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Quotes
Chris’s mother had told Chris to put the box at her feet instead. Sourly, Chris thought “Where else?” But he found the car key and, as he’s done his whole life, kept his response to himself. His mouth formed a “well-worn line” that gave nothing away.
When Chris isn’t surprised that his mother wants the box (which presumably contains his father’s ashes) at her feet, it suggests this is a natural extension of their marriage in life. This would indicate that Chris’s mother ran the show, while his father bowed to her every demand, a parallel to the way his ashes now rest at her feet. Chris’s silence, and the way he puts his mouth in the “well-worn line,” therefore suggest that Chris watched this dynamic without ever commenting or speaking up for himself or his father. Staying quiet and keeping his opinions to himself seems to be a “well-worn” habit that Chris has adopted over time as a way of navigating his stunted relationship with his parents.
Themes
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Quotes
As Chris and his mother walk to the car from the café, she gripes that the scones cost too much. Chris knows that the Book Club Women will hear about this indignity. When he reaches the car, he fumbles with the keys while he waits for his mother. He finds the key for the trunk so they can take the bag out. When they’d arrived at the café, Chris’s mother insisted that they park the car where they could see it, in case someone tried to steal something. She said that it’s bad enough leaving “him” in the trunk without risking the possibility that someone would steal “him.” But when Chris suggested they take the bag into the café, Chris’s mother refused.
Again, Chris’s mother seems to take pleasure in holding a grudge about the ways people have wronged her, even over something as trivial as the scones in the café. This further implies that Chris’s mother probably applies this same critical outlook to most things in her life. Her behavior in this regard has seemingly had a negative effect on her relationship with her son, as he doesn’t feel comfortable speaking openly around her. This passage also confirms that the box in the car does indeed contains Chris’s father’s ashes. This is why Chris’s mother is so scandalized about leaving “him” (her husband) in the car. However, she’s also concerned about appearances, as evidenced by her refusal to bring the box into the café for fear of being embarrassed. This, again, hints at why her relationship with Chris is so strained: she’s a highly critical person, and one who is perhaps more concerned with what others think of her and her family than with actually nurturing her relationships.
Themes
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Chris has noticed that his mother can barely bring herself to touch the box—it seems to possess some supernatural power. When they’d gotten it from the crematorium, she’d stood silently; it fell to Chris to pick up the box, sign for it, and ask for a bag to put it in. Only after they got outside did his mother explode about how disrespectful it is to not provide families with urns or something more appropriate than a box. Though Chris expected his mother to cry, she didn’t. Instead, when they got home, she’d unlocked her antique cabinet and stood aside so he could put the box there alongside the gold-leaf tableware. In that moment, Chris longed to be with Scott so much that it hurt.
Grief is a complex emotion that can be expressed in any number of ways, so it’s possible to read Chris’s mother’s behavior as an expression of intense grief. It may be legitimately hard for her to wrap her head around the fact that her husband—once a living, breathing person she shared her life with—is now reduced to something as small as a box that she can hold in her hands. Chris, however, is seemingly unwilling to give his mother any grace in this regard. Instead, he resents that she forces him to take on the responsibility of handling the box and filling out the paperwork. And indeed, Chris’s mother doesn’t seem to consider that her son might harbor similar objections about handling his father’s remains; she expects him to be stoic and responsible in this situation, regardless of his feelings. Because of her selfishness, Chris has had to turn elsewhere for support—presumably, to Scott (though it's not yet clear what his relationship with Scott is or was).
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Even now, three years later, it still hits Chris in unexpected moments; sometimes he misses Scott with such an intensity that it aches. Scott would’ve known just what to do: pour Chris a whisky and drink together until the bottle was empty. If Scott had been there, Chris wouldn’t have felt so useless and embarrassed about how he and his mother communicated like strangers. It felt like they were observing some other person’s ritual. Scott, though, would’ve known how to make this feel more like a ceremony.
Here, Chris implies that he and Scott were in a romantic relationship but have since broken up. By comparing how he engaged with Scott versus how he engages with his mother, Chris makes it clear that he and his mother aren’t on good terms and don’t communicate well. The only way Chris feels appreciated and seen is to talk to people outside the family. Given how much he still misses Scott, this implies that Chris might not have anyone to talk to at this point—which could hint that his communication issues with his parents have bled into other realms of his life, making it difficult for him to sustain other close relationships.
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Chris stands by the car with the cotton bag, waiting for his mother as she browses a craft shop’s outdoor display. There’s a rustic wheelbarrow filled with miniature bears, sachets, and fabric bits. His mother has a wardrobe full of unfinished craft projects already—though, thankfully, Chris thinks that she’s finally stopped knitting baby clothes. His mother, absorbed in her shopping, examines a bag of bath salts.
Although Chris and his mother are clearly feeling the loss of his father, his mother seemingly wants the lighthearted distraction of browsing at a craft shop. Rather than dwelling on pain and negativity, her way of grieving involves making the day as enjoyable as possible—a stark contrast to Chris’s desire to drink a bottle of whiskey and mourn his father in a more morose and ceremonial way. The aside that Chris is glad his mother has stopped knitting baby clothes implies that she was knitting these clothes for the children she hoped Chris would have, and that she’s since given up on the project. With this, readers can infer that his mother has specific expectations for her son: namely, she wants him to father children. Chris’s relief that she’s stopped knitting implies that he might not want to have children—or, at the very least, that he doesn’t appreciate his mother’s pressure to do so.
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Chris’s father used to joke that Chris’s mother could shop in a service station. He spent his life waiting outside shops for her, just like Chris is now. Chris knows that his mother will want something to commemorate the trip—it’ll be a souvenir she can put on a shelf and “refer to bravely.” She finally gets back in the car with a paper bag and murmurs that she bought a silver picture frame that was on sale. She notes that there were others; maybe she should’ve picked one up for Pam. Chris’s mother sighs and seems comforted by the frame; it seems to distract her from the slight of the fake whipped cream.
Here, the narration reinforces the fact that the people in Chris’s mother’s life tiptoe around her and are perhaps even afraid to raise their concerns or object to her. This further characterizes Chris and his parents as people who are fundamentally uncommunicative, at least with one another; they allow their resentment to build rather than openly discussing annoyances or deeper problems. Importantly, though, Chris seems to judge his mother much in the same way that he thinks she judges him. Without knowing what she’s actually thinking, Chris assumes that she’s buying a souvenir merely so that she’ll be able to “refer to [it] bravely” and make people feel sorry for her. In this way, Chris and his mother's poor communication seems to be a two-way street: he has preconceptions of her, just as she has preconceptions of him. Readers, however, can see that Chris’s judgement of his mother may be misguided: after all, shopping seems to be a relatively harmless and even therapeutic activity for her, particular now that she’s trying to cope with the loss of her husband. Buying the picture frame may be a way for her to gain a small amount control over her life, or a way to reframe events (both literally in the form of a photograph, and figuratively within her memory) so that they’re easier to deal with.
Themes
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As they drive, Chris keeps an eye out for the turnoff. He thinks he’ll remember it when he sees it, but he hasn’t been out here in 25 years. After the turnoff, it’s another 20 kilometers to get to the lake. He remembers there being a jetty past the campsites. It’ll be a good place to “stand and do it,” rather than on the muddy bank. Chris even charged the digital camera for the occasion.
Chris’s thinks he may still remember the route to the lake even after 25 years, which suggests that this place holds deep significance for him—perhaps, like his father’s car, it’s symbolic of his and his father’s relationship. The reference to Chris and his mother going to “stand and do it” on the jetty suggests that they’re taking this trip to scatter Chris’s father’s ashes, an event that Chris wants to commemorate—hence why he charged the digital camera.
Themes
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Chris’s father’s car has a cruise-control check that beeps at him whenever he exceeds the posted speed limit, startling him and making him feel guilty. Meanwhile, the heat in the car makes the lingering scent of his father even stronger. Chris tries to remember when he was last close enough to his father to smell him—it wouldn’t have been at the hospital, which smelled only of drugs and cleaning agents. Chris shoves a CD in the car’s player, and another “memory-bomb” goes off in his head. The CD is the Three Tenors; he bought it for his parents two Christmases ago. That moment would’ve been the last time Chris smelled his father, when they exchanged their usual quick hug and slap on the back.
The car’s cruise-control check has a peculiar effect on Chris, as it goes beyond just startling him—strangely, it makes him feel guilty. Given that the car represents the memory of Chris’s father more broadly, his reaction to the cruise-control check perhaps suggests that Chris feels like his father still has a level of control over him and is urging him to be compliant, even from beyond the grave. This is why Chris feels guilty when it beeps at him—the car, a stand-in for his father, is telling him when he does something wrong. This all becomes harder to bear given how much the car smells like his father, reinforcing its role as a symbol for their relationship. Chris’s realization that it’s been two years since he was close enough to his father to smell him, coupled with the memory of their awkward and hasty show of affection, indicate that they weren’t very close. Yet, even if Chris and his father didn’t have a great relationship, the memory is still painful for Chris to think about. This is why he describes the memory of their last Christmas together as a “memory-bomb”: this language has connotations with violence and war, hearkening back to the story’s earlier comparison of Chris’s memories of his father to “land mines.”
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Quotes
Chris feels a headache starting: he knows what’s coming. His mother wants to talk, and he’ll have to pay attention to steer her away from “dangerous territory.” Chris’s mother says that people told her the service was wonderful. Graham and Laura asked Chris’s mother about a memorial plaque for Chris’s father at the crematorium gardens, so she went with Neil and Shirley to check it out. Elaine went that route for John, but according to Laura, it costs thousands of dollars—and the ashes aren’t even buried, just scattered in garden beds.
The “dangerous territory” Chris wants to avoid in a conversation with his mother likely refers to topics that will make him feel ashamed or uncomfortable (like his perceived failure to provide her with grandchildren). In this way, he'd rather they avoid difficult subjects than discuss them openly, which further speaks to the gulf between them as they struggle to communicate and understand each other. Chris also feels a headache coming on, which further indicates that spending time with his mother is stressful rather than enjoyable—especially when compounded by grief. Meanwhile, the people Chris’s mother mentions are likely her friends. But the story’s narration doesn’t give any details about them, which is perhaps a hint to readers that these are shallow acquaintances rather than deep, meaningful friendships. This again implies that Chris’s mother is chiefly concerned with keeping up appearances in her social sphere (which, readers know, is largely built on sharing gossip and trivial complaints). This, too, is perhaps why Chris feels so uncomfortable speaking openly with his mother: he’s afraid of disappointing her and of being judged and gossiped about in the same way his mother talks about other people. And again, rather than showing her emotions and openly grieving, Chris’s mother would rather stick to lighter topics like the crematorium garden plot.
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Chris waits for his mother to bring up the lake next. He knows his mother is grieving and needs someone to listen to her, but he can’t help his “roiling, sneering intolerance.” Chris clenches his jaw as his mother says that she told her friends they’d just go to the lake. It’s better to do something meaningful for her and for Chris, and Alan (Chris’s father) would’ve wanted this.
Chris’s reaction makes it clear that he’s heard this line about the lake multiple times, and he doesn’t find it particularly useful—or even true. However, Chris acknowledges his own “sneering intolerance” when he listens to his mother talk about how meaningful the lake is. This signals to readers that although Chris’s mother may be embellishing about how important the lake was to Chris and his father, it’s just as likely that it was important to them, and that Chris is just reluctant to admit it and cede any ground to his mother. Given how reluctant Chris is to express himself around his mother, it seems likely that his parents may be just as closed-off around him. He might not understand just how important the lake was to either of his parents, which speaks to how a lack of communication can create misunderstanding and subsequent strain on relationships.
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After a pause, Chris’s mother says what Chris expected her to say: that the trips to the lake that Chris and his father took were very special to his father. Chris grunts; if he answers with words, he might get a detail wrong. His mother told Shirley that Alan would rather be laid to rest in a place where he shared “precious times with his son.” He had many happy memories of “all those fishing trips.” But Chris remembers that he and his father only went twice—after that, his father gave up.
Chris feels like he has to respond to his mother with grunts rather than words, which again shows the extent to which a lack of clear communication has damaged their relationship. He seems to fear that if he says what he really thinks about the fishing trips, his mother will reprimand or harshly correct him. Chris doesn’t seem to believe that going to the lake meant anything to his father—but since the story is skewed to focus on his perspective, it’s entirely possible that these trips were “precious time” to his father. In this way, much like Chris’s difficulties with his mother are two-sided, he and his father may have both played a role in their strained relationship. Chris, however, makes it clear that his mother is exaggerating the details and won’t accept any corrections; this is why he only grunts for fear of getting some part of the story wrong. For his mother, rewriting the story to turn two fishing trips into “all those fishing trips” could be a way of grieving—it may serve as a way for her to rewrite the past in a way that makes it easier to accept and move past.
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Quotes
The fishing trips are etched in Chris’s mind alongside the other “powerless indignities of childhood.” His father always tried to have “blokey conversation” with him—but his attempts sputtered out like a boat’s engine, and he eventually stopped. Chris always felt sick at the smell of the fishing boat’s gasoline, and his father could barely conceal his disgust when Chris asked to bring a book out on the boat the next day. At night, they’d sit by the tent with nothing to say. Chris’s father’s forced good humor would evaporate slowly as Chris coughed in the campfire smoke. At night, Chris tried not to move too much in his sleeping bag. When they finally packed the car to return home, the cooler was still empty and leaking ice, and Chris felt like he’d somehow failed a test.
Regardless of how Chris’s mother feels about the father-son fishing trips, these experiences weren’t fun for Chris—indeed, they made him feel powerless and as though he had to submit to whatever “indignities” his father wanted. It seems like Chris’s father was very interested in cultivating his son’s interest in traditionally masculine pursuits, hence the camping  trips themselves and the man-to-man conversation attempts in the boat. But Chris wasn’t able to be masculine in a way that pleased his father—instead, he found the whole thing uncomfortable and boring. Ultimately, then, the trips had the opposite effect that Chris’s father wanted them to have, driving them further apart rather than closer together.
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Quotes
On the drive home after the second trip, Chris’s father had muttered, “I don’t know what’s bloody wrong with you.” Chris had wanted to say something that would save his pride, but his mouth felt dry. He’d only been 11 or 12, and he was vaguely aware that something about him was dissatisfying. Whatever it was baffled his father and made his mother act embarrassed whenever they had guests over. Neither of his parents could name what it was, but Chris would sometimes look up and catch something like fear in their expressions.
Here, the story heavily implies that the reason why Chris’s father was so upset about the fishing trip (and why his parents felt embarrassed of him) was that they noticed his lack of stereotypically masculine traits and perhaps even suspected that he was gay. His sexual orientation and gender expression are likely what his parents found “dissatisfying” about him—his father even went so far as to imply that something was “wrong” with Chris. Together, all of this explains why Chris is so withdrawn around his mother, and why there’s so much lingering pain around the memory of his father. His parents treated him as though he was an embarrassment; it makes sense, then, that Chris has never felt comfortable opening up to them.
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It wasn’t until Chris was in college that he figured out what was “wrong” with him. The realization was comically cliché: when he’d told Scott about the fishing trips once, he’d expected commiseration. But instead, Scott collapsed with laughter. Chris insisted that it wasn’t funny, since the trips were excruciating and felt like punishment. But Scott told Chris to lighten up—he’s not the first gay man with parents who didn’t understand him. Bitterly, Chris told Scott not to say that it’s “all part of the journey,” but Scott didn’t take the bait, instead gently saying that it is part of the journey. It’s not worth it to blame his parents—instead, Chris should move on.
This passage confirms that Chris is, in fact, gay. But he wasn’t fully aware of his own sexuality until college, which explains why his parents’ thinly-veiled disapproval of his sexuality and gender expression was so confusing and hurtful to him over the years. As an adult, he sees the father-son fishing trips as proof that his father was homophobic and unaccepting of his son. Scott, however, encouraged Chris to see his father’s actions less as a calculated attempt to make him feel bad and more as a reflection of the fact that his father didn’t understand him but still wanted to make an effort. It is, in Scott’s understanding, “part of the journey” for gay kids to have to put up with parents who don’t fully understand them. And Scott also suggests that Chris should move on, a bit of advice that it doesn’t seem like Chris took. If he had, he wouldn’t be dwelling on the trips now—and perhaps he wouldn’t be feeling so resentful of his mother, either.
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But instead, Scott moved on. Chris had been on the cusp of introducing Scott to his parents and was just waiting for the right moment, which he’d told Scott in increasingly self-accusing tones—he wasn’t ashamed of Scott, of course. But Scott had left anyway.
The insistence that Chris wasn’t ashamed of Scott reads as something Chris told himself and Scott to try to cover up the truth. On some level, Chris likely was ashamed of his sexuality, given his parents’ lifelong disapproval—and, by extension, this would mean that he was ashamed of introducing Scott as his boyfriend. In this sense, the way Chris’s parents treated him as a child still makes him feel ashamed and embarrassed of his identity, even decades later.
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Quotes
Chris thinks of the last time he saw his father, in the hospital after surgery. The morphine must’ve let his father drop his usual standoffish nature. With a wry smile, he’d asked Chris if Chris’s mother had gone down to check out the gift shop. Chris squeezed his father’s arm and said she had. He smiled at his father, too hard. Chris’s father had started to say, “Your mother,” but he paused. Then, he picked up again and told Chris that his mother has, in her own way, always been proud of him. Chris kept his hand on his father’s arm and patted it. Disbelievingly, he thought that it was too late to address this now—his father shouldn’t dare to bring this up.
Chris’s mother’s shopping habit seems to be the butt of a joke between Chris and his father, suggesting that the men may have at least been able to connect over something. It’s implied that when Chris’s father changed the subject, he was poised to bring up Chris’s sexuality—this is the topic that Chris believed was too late for his father to broach. From the way Chris clammed up at the mere prospect of discussing his sexuality, it’s clear that it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss. But because Chris’s family generally isn’t comfortable either speaking openly or asking people to leave certain subjects alone, Chris probably didn’t feel like he could ask his father to stop.
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But Chris’s father continued anyway. Panting a little, he said that Chris has to live how he sees fit—but there’s no need for Chris to “throw it in her face.” Keeping his eyes closed, his father insisted that it would kill his mother.
Chris’s father essentially told him that he could be gay in secret, but that he shouldn’t let any indicators of his sexuality show in front of his mother. Indeed, Chris’s father characterized Chris being openly gay as “throw[ing] it in her face.” Essentially, he encouraged Chris to keep quiet and hide who he is. Given that these were his father’s dying words, it’s no wonder that Chris now feels unable to speak up for himself or contradict his mother. 
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Quotes
Chris’s father spent his last hours worrying about Chris’s mother, but it had killed him, not her. He’d taken that heavy admission and held onto it until his death. Chris thinks now that his father was a secretive man. He can recognize that because, ironically, Chris has also become secretive.
Chris realizes, on some level, that his father’s last words reflected his own homophobia, not necessarily his mother’s. In fact, it’s possible that Chris’s mother would be supportive of her son if she knew for sure that he’s gay. But because Chris has become secretive, like his father, he doesn’t think he should tell her. It may feel easier to him to live with this secrecy than to come out and tell his mother he’s gay. But, in doing so, Chris is arguably just as guilty of shutting down lines of communication as his mother is. Just as Chris’s mother alienates her son by placing her own expectations and judgment on him, Chris has preconceptions of his mother that stand in the way of them connecting and bettering their relationship. These opinions may or may not be true, yet Chris believes them so wholeheartedly that he shuts his mother out entirely.
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Since the funeral, Chris’s mother has been embellishing past events to make them seem happier and richer. Each time Chris visits her, it’s like past events have been covered in more embellishments until the truth of what he remembers is totally buried. For instance, when Chris’s father was alive, his mother had hated his “morose passivity” and had blamed him for trapping her in a boring, predictable life. She used to speak to him like he was stupid and overreact when he did the slightest thing wrong. Now, she reminisces with a smile about how patient and well-intentioned he was.
It’s possible Chris’s mother is rewriting these stories because she disliked and resented her husband. So, to make it easier to grieve for him now that he’s gone, she may be trying to recreate her image of him in her head. Essentially, she may be crafting for herself the kind of memories that would make her want to mourn him—and the kind of memories that would sound more palatable to the Book Club Women and her other acquaintances. It’s also important to note the way Chris describes his father, particularly as having had a “morose passivity” about him. This perhaps implies that, at least from Chris’s perspective, his mother was domineering to the point that his father became withdrawn and apathetic. In this way, it doesn’t seem like his father was happy in their marriage, either.
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Chris’s mother laments that it’s such a shame Chris never took pictures on the fishing trips with his father. His father, she insists, would’ve loved the record of the trips. The car beeps again, and Chris jumps. His mother sighs, looks away, and says (half to herself) that Chris’s father loved coming here with Chris. Chris finds this revision of the past nauseating and infuriating.
To Chris, his mother’s new habit of rewriting history is offensive, as it ignores the harm his parents caused in making him feel ashamed of his sexuality. But again, there may be a more complicated reason for why Chris’s mother is reframing her memories. She might feel bad for her complicity in pressuring her son to hide who he is, and rewriting the past may make her feel better about her role in all of this. It could even be possible that Chris misunderstood his mother’s behavior when he was a child—that she wasn’t actually embarrassed of him, and that she doesn’t share her late husband’s homophobic sentiments. Chris isn’t willing to consider any of this, though, which suggests that he’s stuck in his way of thinking and isn’t willing to consider a new perspective—to give his mother the benefit of the doubt, as Scott suggested years ago.
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Angrily, Chris thinks that this is the best his mother can come up with: the two of them going out to carry out a ceremony all alone, in a place where the symbolism is just an invention. He imagines telling her that the reality is just the two of them, him the supposed 35-year-old “perennial bachelor,” embarking on a “pitiful pilgrimage” that he can’t wait to be over. These words spin through his head and seem to smoke like acid. Chris sees the sign for the lake, flips on the turn signal, and jumps again as the car beeps at him. It feels like Chris’s father nudging him in the ribs.
To Chris, his own perception of the situation seems unquestionably true. The lake, rather than symbolizing a close father-son relationship, symbolizes his humiliation. He thinks that this trip to scatter his father’s ashes is a “pitiful” sham that glosses over what his relationship with his father was really like, and he also seems to believe that his mother thinks of him as a “perennial bachelor.” But again, Chris doesn’t consider whether the lake might have meant something more to his father and, by extension, to his mother. He also doesn’t acknowledge that his mom might not think of him in such condescending terms, as it’s not clear whether she knows he’s gay, and she may genuinely believe that getting married and having children would make him happy. Again, just as Chris’s parents have long misunderstood him, he is seemingly unwilling to see things from their perspective, which only fuels the resentment that underpins their family dynamic. The beeping car, meanwhile, feels to Chris like his father’s way of expressing his disapproval from beyond the grave—his memories of his father are, at this point, haunting and jarring rather than comforting.
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Recently, Chris’s mother has begun inviting him to dinner during the week. He sees what she’s doing: she delays serving dinner until later and later in the evening, and then she begs him to stay and watch the news with her. Chris always agrees, but he desperately wants to leave. Then, his mother always notes that if it’s too late for him to drive home, he could just stay the night and leave for work straight from her house in the morning. Though he protests, she simply reminds him that there are towels and shirts for him, in the same tone of voice she’d used to make him behave when he was a child.
Chris’s mother seems lonely without her husband, which is likely why she’s trying to cling onto Chris and convince him to spend more time with her. However, she’s also (perhaps unintentionally) infantilizing her son, speaking to him as though he’s a child rather than a 35-year-old man. The way Chris’s mother treats him suggests that she still wants to control him, perhaps because he’s failed to live up to her expectations and she wants to play a more active role in shaping his life as she sees fit. But alongside this, it’s significant that the story never reveals much about Chris’s personal life or career. This may be because Chris feels compelled to hide things about his life from his mother (and, by extension, from readers) for fear of being judged or dismissed.
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Chris knows where this is going, and he’s already exhausted at the prospect of having to squash her hopes in the near future. Soon, his mother won’t be able to hide her disappointment so well when he refuses to stay, so she’ll escalate. She’ll take a petulant tone and say that she feels nervous alone in the house at night—and then she’ll add that Chris doesn’t have a wife and kids to get home to, anyway.
Although this exchange is imaginary, it nevertheless shows how Chris sees his mother. In his mind, she’s selfish and critical, and he doesn’t believe his mother  truly considers a person an adult until they’re married with children. This would explain why she infantilizes Chris—in her mind, he’s not an adult anyway. But, importantly, readers have no way of knowing if this is what Chris’s mother actually believes, since the story is skewed toward Chris’s perspective. He may or may not be correct, but he’s nevertheless making assumptions rather than openly communicating with his mother, which continues to drive a wedge between them. 
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Back in the present, the campsite looks different. Now it has big signs, composting toilets, and designated fire pits. Chris remembers gathering wood so many years ago as his father lectured him about snakes and bushfires. His father had taken out a special trowel to dig a rectangular hole for their campfire and then laid out the sticks in a grid.
The pained reaction that Chris previously had to memories of his father is notably absent here. It’s possible, then, that returning to the lake is helping Chris better process his grief and his conflicted emotions about his father.
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Presently, Chris’s mother struggles a little on the sandy path from the parking lot to the jetty, so Chris slows down to accommodate her. He feels nauseous and panicked at the prospect of his mother asking him to say some sort of farewell. Giving the eulogy was bad enough; he’d amazed himself by dissolving in tears while talking to the minister afterward. The minister had stood patiently while Chris tried to pull himself together. Chris couldn’t tell the stranger what he was even grieving for—he couldn’t articulate it, even to himself. Now, he thinks it was just the strain of the day and of having to keep himself together.
Although Chris is extremely nervous about having to make a speech, he doesn’t openly express his worries to his mother. Instead, he simply assumes that he’ll be pressured into saying something now, just as he was pressured into giving his father’s eulogy at the funeral. Again, this points to a lack of communication between Chris and his mother: rather than voicing his concerns and being vulnerable with her, he allows his grief and resentment to fester. This struggle to express himself and articulate his emotions also spilled over into Chris’s interactions with the priest. It seems that Chris doesn’t know exactly what he’s feeling, nor is he sure how to grieve a man who hurt him so deeply in the past.
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When Chris and his mother reach the jetty, his mother exclaims in relief that it’s lovely. In a trembling voice, she says that she doesn’t want to say anything—she just wants to scatter the ashes, even though it’s hard. His mother laments not opening up the box and saving some of the ashes for herself, so Chris tells her that they can put some ashes in the camera bag. She can take them home and scatter them under the roses. Chris is desperate to come up with a quick solution to keep his mother from breaking down; he has to be the strong one in this situation.
Contrary to what Chris assumed, his mother doesn’t want either of them to say anything before scattering the ashes. Given the poor communication readers have witnessed between Chris and his parents throughout the story, it’s possible that his mother has just as much trouble articulating herself and being emotionally vulnerable as her son does. Meanwhile, Chris is terrified that his mother will break down—likely because he hasn’t quite figured out how to face his own grief yet, let alone how to comfort his mother.
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Chris chuckles and asks his mother to imagine what his father would say about putting ashes in the camera bag. His mother smiles back and says that it’s better than a matchbox. She asks if Chris remembers how much his father hated her smoking, so much that she finally gave it up.
The anecdote about quitting smoking seems to be Chris’s mother's way of acknowledging that her marriage wasn’t perfect. There were clearly things the couple didn’t agree on, and there were likely other compromises that they had to make. Furthermore, readers know from Chris’s perspective that his mother felt trapped in the marriage and often got frustrated with his father. Both Chris and his mother, then, had difficult relationships with his father. However, they’re dealing with their grief in different ways: Chris’s mother wants to remember the past, while Chris wants to run from it.
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Chris walks to the end of the jetty, pulls the box out of the bag, and crouches down to open it. There’s a foam tub inside the box that’s sealed with tape. As Chris picks at the tape, his mother hands him a pair of nail scissors. The gesture surprises him, and he holds the scissors for a moment to stall. His mother murmurs how nice it is that they have the lake to themselves; it would be awful to have someone else here for this private moment.
Chris’s mother’s offer of the scissors is a simple gesture, yet her uncharacteristic kindness in this moment is enough to catch Chris off guard. This hints that scattering her late husband’s ashes might be an occasion capable of changing how Chris’s mother interacts with her son, if only because it forces her to confront her emotions. However, she also mentions that it’s nice to have the privacy, which could imply that she’s still concerned with what others think and with maintaining appearances. It’s unlikely that anyone would think poorly of Chris and his mother for scattering ashes and expressing their emotions as they do so—but Chris’s mother still seems unwilling to do anything out of the ordinary in front of an audience.
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As Chris looks out across the sparkling water, he wishes he’d brought sunglasses. Suddenly, he remembers sitting in the boat with his father. Their rods swung without bait, and his father had squinted at the water. He’d looked so unfamiliar in his bucket hat. His father asked Chris if he didn’t think they’d catch anything, and Chris shook his head in reply. His father had said that it didn’t really matter; it was just nice to be out here. Chris had forgotten that moment and his father’s hopeful smile until now.
This memory paints Chris’s father as someone unfamiliar and foreign to him—even though they were father and son, Chris felt alienated in their relationship. But the memory also characterizes his father as a man who was genuinely trying to bond with his son. From this, readers can infer that Chris’s father was probably a more complex and even sympathetic person than Chris tends to remember him as. Although his homophobic sentiments certainly hurt his son, he nevertheless wanted to connect with Chris—something that their lack of clear communication prevented from happening. The fact that Chris forgot the smile on his father’s face until now perhaps suggests that coming to acknowledge his father’s virtues alongside his flaws will be an integral part of his grieving process.
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Getting up, Chris takes a photo of his mother on the end of the jetty in her blazer. He asks her to pick up the box and peers into the viewfinder. Though she hesitates, she lifts the box and holds it to her chest. The plain box contrasts with her flowered scarf, and Chris imagines her looking in the mirror and choosing her scarf that morning. She would’ve raised her chin, and he knows that each tiny decision would’ve taken effort. Now, he wishes he’d told her she looked nice when he picked her up.
Even though Chris and his mother aren’t especially close, Chris still thinks about his mother as though he knows her very well. He sympathizes with her grief and recognizes that getting ready for this difficult day was probably an ordeal for her, which is why he wishes that he’d complimented her outfit. These thoughts hint that Chris and his mother’s shared grief over his father’s death could present a bonding opportunity for them, as seeing his mother in pain is allowing Chris to develop empathy for her. Moreover, Chris is beginning to realize that he’s made mistakes in their relationship, too.
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Chris’s mother faces the camera with an “obedient and tremulous” expression. She tries not to blink. Chris’s throat feels tight and his eyes sting. After he takes the picture, he returns to her and slices the tape. When he lifts the lid of the tub, he watches conflicting emotions cross his mother’s face. She takes one panicked look into the tub, looks away, and says, “You.”
The “obedient and tremulous” expression on Chris’s mother’s face hearkens back to Chris’s own thought that he has to be strong for his mother. Although he holds this belief about his role in their relationship, his mother’s strained expression indicates that she’s trying to be strong for Chris as well. In addition, she may want to put on a brave face so that she looks happier in the photo than she really is, which would be another way of reframing the past and deciding how moments like these are remembered. Seeing how much of an effort she’s making is likely what makes Chris start to choke up. Things take a turn for the worse, though, when Chris’s mother has such an adverse reaction to seeing the ashes. She puts all the responsibility on Chris, much like she did at the crematorium, without giving him any room to push back or express what he wants this ritual to look like.
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Chris’s mother leaves no room for Chris to feel the same resistance that she does. He knows that he’s also incapable of just standing and turning the tub over to dump the contents into the water—he’s going to have to touch the ashes.
This passage suggests that, on some level, Chris feels just as much aversion to touching his father’s ashes as his mother does. But again, rather than expressing this, he stays silent because he doesn’t want to rock the boat by unceremoniously dumping the tub or outrightly refusing to scatter the ashes. The pressure Chris’s mother puts on him here is arguably unfair—his mother, after all, was the one who decided that they should scatter the ashes on the lake. Again, the lack of communication between mother and son makes this day more stressful and painful than it perhaps needed to be.
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As Chris pinches some of the ashes between his fingers and sprinkles them into the water, he notices that they feel like a handful of coarse sand. He remembers crouching here with his father, cleaning saucepans with river sand and filling them up to pour onto the campfire coals. His father had crushed the coals and then neatly scattered soil on top—he’d used the same motion then that Chris is using now to scatter his father’s ashes into the water. The air had smelled like wet ash, and the cicadas’ song beat like a clock. Chris remembers his father glancing around and asking him to agree that it was a great spot anyway.
Here, Chris’s memories of the past seem to meld with his actions in the present. Scattering his father’s ashes in the lake immerses Chris back in the past—and again, his memories seem neutral, if not fond. His father comes off as competent, in control, and even happy with the trip despite Chris’s unhappiness. This is a stark contrast to how Chris previously remembered the fishing trips (as disasters), and it’s another indicator that the trips actually meant a great deal to Chris’s father. This again speaks to the dangers of staying mired in one’s own perspective and refusing to talk things out or change one’s point of view. Perhaps, like Chris’s mother suggested, it is for the best that his father’s final resting place will be the lake, as this location represents the complexity of Chris and his father’s relationship—for better or worse.
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Now, Chris wonders why he didn’t agree enthusiastically. It wouldn’t have cost him anything to do more than shrug, which he’d done for the “small mean pleasure” of making his father turn away in defeat. Chris scoops up another handful of ashes, and he can’t quite believe that this dust and grit is all that’s left of something “hard and unyielding” like bone. His mother repeatedly whispers, “Goodbye, Alan,” until the box is empty.
Here, Chris realizes—perhaps for the first time—that he made mistakes in his relationship with his father, too. He might not have been having fun, but he also didn’t have to act cruelly when it was clear that his father was trying his best to reach out and bond with his son. Again, his relationship with his father was complicated, and his father’s homophobia was undoubtedly hurtful—but Chris also didn’t help matters. Meanwhile, as Chris describes the ashes and the “hard and unyielding” bones they came from, he’s describing his father in this way as much as he’s describing the actual bones. His father, in his mind, may have been set in his ways and unable to change. But now that his father is gone and has been diminished to something as insignificant as ash, it seems possible that Chris’s memories will begin to change too—Chris may be able to finally put the past in the past.
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As Chris and his mother stand on the jetty, his mother weeps and folds the cotton bag again and again while shifting in her uncomfortable shoes. Chris rinses his hands and wonders again why he didn’t answer his father that day. The memory makes him feel sick; it seems like such a waste. In the afternoon heat, the cicadas’ song picks up. It sounds like a heartbeat that measures out “uncounted hours.”
In this moment, Chris seems to fully accept his role in his poor relationship with his father. He acknowledges that it would have been easy to make an effort—all he’d needed to do was answer his father. But because Chris didn’t answer, the afternoon—and the ensuing years of his strained relationship with his father—now seem like a waste. They lost “uncounted hours” of time together, all because they couldn’t speak openly with each other or trust the other to accept them.
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Finally, Chris asks his mother if she’s ready to leave. By the time they get back to the car, she’s pulled herself together enough to ask if they can get back to the gift shop before closing time. She’d like to buy the other frames as gifts for the Book Club Women, to thank them for all their support. Having this purpose seems to make her animated again. Chris thinks they can get back to the shop by 4:30 and agrees that it’d be a nice gesture. He notices a small bit of ash on the lapel of his mother’s jacket, and without interrupting her, he brushes it off “absently, tenderly.”
Though Chris can’t make amends with his father now that he’s gone, his revelation about his role in their relationship also seems to have made him realize that he can work on his relationship with his mother. This is likely why Chris kindly agrees to get his mother back to the gift shop before closing, and why he brushes the ash off her lapel with newfound tenderness. It doesn’t take much, Chris now knows, to improve a relationship. If he’s a little more open and generous with his mother, there’s a real possibility that he can steer their relationship in a better direction than his relationship with his father.
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