The Remarkables

I sit on the bus, Paul’s urn wedged between my legs, where he was always the happiest. I watch the jagged cliffs and swooping green valleys pass by my window. They call the mountain range that hugs Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand, “The Remarkables,” because it’s the only mountain range that runs perfectly north to south. That doesn’t seem very remarkable to me; but it’s where Paul always wanted to elope, and it’s where I’ll put him to rest.

Our bus bumps along and I squeeze my thighs together to keep the urn balanced. The older couple seated across the aisle is whispering. They are red-nosed, stressed-out Americans like me. I overheard them arguing about how long the bus drive was going to be while taking turns pointing vigorously at the pamphlet for Milford Sound. The old woman’s eyes keep darting to Paul’s urn.

I know I should put the urn in my backpack or something. It makes people uncomfortable. But after the incident in the alley, I can’t put it down.

I was at a wine bar back in town—one of those tiny, quiet, river-stone decorated places with an Italian name and a charming bartender. Paul would have loved it. I got a bottle deep on the good red and decided some of Paul should stay there forever. I snuck out the back door and quickly threw a bit of ash on the ground in the alley. Unfortunately, in my hurry, I never properly closed the lid, and the inside of my backpack ended up coated in a fine white dust. It took ages to clean. It will never smell the same.

I catch the older woman’s eye. She stops mid-whisper and gives me a tight smile.

“My condolences,” she tells me, with a head tilt toward the urn.

“Oh, thank you,” I say.

“Your husband?” she asks.

It’s a good guess, but it stings every time.

“My boyfriend,” I say, “but we talked about getting married in New Zealand.” True and false. Paul did want to get married here, but maybe not to me.

“Oh. I’m—I’m sorry,” the woman says.

“Thank you.” I smile encouragingly. I feel like being helpful.

“How old was he when he passed?” I’ve been asked that question a few times this trip. I told the customs agent he was thirty-two, his age when we first met in spin class: drenched in sweat, delirious, and so interested in me. I told a bartender he was thirty-seven, his age the last time I saw him—red-rimmed eyes, wrinkly plaid shirt, still so handsome. But today, the last day of the trip, holding the last of the ashes, I feel like being honest.

“Oh, he’s not dead.”

I have shocked her. She looks at the urn, then back at me. She turns to her husband for help. He clears his throat.

“Sorry, what was that? We didn’t quite…catch?”

 “I was just saying that my boyfriend isn’t dead. Or at least, as far as I know.” I make a ha-ha noise after saying this, which I immediately regret. Both the man and women draw back further toward their side of the bus. I keep going, I can’t stop. “I suppose, if he dies, no one will think to notify me now. These are the ashes from our relationship. It’s supposed to be symbolic.”

What it is, is crazy, and I knew that when I piled all our old junk (his Seattle Seahawks sweatshirt, a smattering of photos, our ticket stubs from that terrible Macbeth our friend directed) on a barbecue in the backyard. I knew it when I bought the urn on Amazon and filled it with the soot in the BBQ, knew it when I booked a solo ticket to New Zealand. I told our friends I was getting closure and they were happy for me in a tentative way. In their eyes, I’m in the middle of an elongated mental breakdown.

I needed a way to grieve the end of Paul and me, so I flew to The Remarkables and I sprinkled the ashes from the first time we had sex near the edge of the Lake Wakatipu, by a sturdy looking tree. The last time he called me beautiful (blue dress, peach lipstick, hair down) is in a rose bush next to a café where I ate clam chowder. The miscarriage I had in June, a bloody night in the guest bathroom, is scattered behind the wine bar. The time I discovered another woman flirting with him in his text messages is, I’m pretty sure, what coated the inside of my backpack. And now I hold the very last bit of us in an urn on my lap. It’s from the trip we took to Flagstaff. We played in the snow, got drunk on gas station wine coolers and I told him about how my mom died when I was eleven and how she was wearing a yellow blouse that day and smelled like warm vanilla and soap and he held me while I cried and told me I was brave and strong. It is the memory I am most reluctant to leave behind.

The bus reaches the parking lot for Milford Sound. The doors open, and the rush of sea air fills my senses. I taste salt. The old couple move to get off the bus, and away from me, as quickly as they can. I take my time. There’s only one thing left to do.

A small grassy hill sits behind the parking lot like a little green cap and I head that way. It’s an easy climb in the good air, and I feel clean. At the top, the glittering sea stretches before me. With careful hands, I upend the rest of the ashes. They float through the air, whirling casually, disappearing into the blue. I sit there a long time. When I eventually return to the bus, I know for certain I will never come back here again.

Christina MacKinnon is a writer and mother living in Los Angeles, California. She has a degree from Arizona State University and has been recently published in the Passengers Journal, Secret Attic, Big Whoopie Deal, and others.