In the Sunlight of Yesterday

She said that she had wanted once to be cremated when she died. Then she discovered that they had to remove any artificial joints, pins and fasteners, before the incineration. Both of her knees had been replaced. She had an artificial hip as well, and a steel rod that ran the length of her back. “I thought it was the way to go,” she said, “until they told me that.” She sat at the nook there in her yellow on yellow kitchen, in the house she had lived in for well over fifty years. On the table, freshly baked banana bread cooled. The house smelled of spice. “Why, they’d be cutting on me for days,” she said, rolling out foil to wrap the bread in to. “Besides,” she went on, “I just couldn’t stand the thought of some big black man’s hands digging around inside of me.” The image made her shudder. “I told them they’re just going to have to bury me, and that’s that.” She laid a loaf of the bread on to the foil and began to wrap it, folding the corners neatly, as if it were a gift. “I made an extra,” she said, holding up the foiled bread, “For you.” In the window behind her, an old magnolia stood, richly green. A breezed moved through the tree, stirring shadows in the kitchen that, until then, had lay still and unseen. “Don’t forget to take it with you when you leave.”