Mother hugs my brass urn to her chest and wrings her soft hands over my remains—her son taken far too soon—and drains another glass of spirits in honour of the son who nodded and yes-ma’amed, the son whose fingertips coaxed notes to bloom from ivory as he entertained her dinner guests with Bach’s “Goldberg Variations.” But, oh how I hated those showy chords. She refuses to recognize that other version of her son—me the son with a gaping hole at the back of my skull, me a shadow lurking behind the sofa, ready to pounce and shake until her box-blonde chignon hangs limp around her slumped shoulders. She refuses to admit that I, the son who scored 1350 on the SAT, ruined her plans for Harvard by firing a bullet through my beautiful brains. I dreamed of spitting in her bottles of Chardonnay or pissing in her bed when she blacked out, yet I never dared defy until my very end.

From now on, I will be the defiant son. The dangerous son. How often I wanted to stab a fork through her gelatinous eyeball as she droned on about charitable contributions at the dinner table. Now, with my mind, I grasp the fork next to her plate of untouched tuna casserole. I sigh when it refuses to budge, but Mother shivers and scans the vacant room. Tightening the shawl around her shoulders. Of course, haunting must take practice! Like long hours at the keyboard preparing songs she chose for my recitals, always baroque. Start with something I knew well, like lifting the keyboard lid. Thunk! Mother peers into the dark corners and tilts the bottle of Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve to her lips and glug-glug-glugs until it’s empty. I picture the notes to Phillip Glass’ “Metamorphosis,” music that soothed my distressed soul. Mother complained the simple structure tormented her, so I only rehearsed while she attended her hoity-toity luncheons or soirées. Now, I close my eyes and imagine my fingers stroking each memorized note to life.

At first, the cords tinkle out. Soon enough, my mind pounds the keys. Mother screams, drops my urn next to the forget-me-nots on the mantel, her wail trailing until the front door slams. After the coda, I settle in atop the ashes and sleep like never before.