by Roanne Kolvenbach

About a month ago my friend Bray called me. His mother's ashes happen to be interred here in San Miguel where I just relocated and there was some confusion about an overdue payment for her crypt at the church. Now, maybe that confusion was innocent and maybe it wasn't. That wasn't for me to say. But after she was cremated, when Bray handed the priest the cash for the crypt, the guy slipped it into his pocket and walked away. No receipt. No nothing. A year later Bray started getting emails saying he owed another $9,800 pesos and if the church didn't receive payment they'd be forced to discard his mother's ashes. Not kidding.

We've been friends since 1984 so over the years I'd gotten to know his mother. She was a personal shopper at Neiman Marcus and had legendary style and a gale-force personality that was a little scary—in a familiar Boston kind of way. I liked her very much. After months of increasingly exasperated emails with no resolution on how to pay the balance from abroad, and the end of the month approaching, Bray asked if I'd be willing to go hand some blood money to the priest (and make sure to get a fucking receipt). I'm always up for an anti-shyster crypt-caper, especially one with a cynical takedown involved, and it turns out the church is only a fifteen-minute walk from my new apartment. Plus I have nothing else to do and don't know anyone here.

Disappointingly, Padre Josué was super nice and didn't behave remotely like an extortionist. When I handed him the cash, he wrote out a detailed receipt like something yellowed you'd find in an attic proving nothing no-one can decipher. Then told me he couldn't give me the title-paper because something was wrong with the power so his computer won't turn on.

When I pointed to the light shining brightly in the ceiling directly above where we were sitting, he just shrugged. We made an appointment for me to come back in three days but with the residue of Bray's ranting still gunked up in my ear, and my New York-scam-hackles up, I asked to see her crypt—because was there even one?

Padre Josué led me into a small, immaculate room off the sanctuary where three of the four walls are lined floor-to-ceiling with glass-fronted cubbies. He pointed to one on the back wall near the bottom, marked F3. Propped next to a pretty round container perched on a brightwhite, lacy pillow was a photograph of Bray's mother and a clipping of Oración al Espíritu Santo. In the photograph, she looks just how I remember. Jet black hair pulled back tight. Perfect makeup. Perfect jewelry. I never saw her during her later years when, like my father, she was also battling cancer. When I crouched down for a better look I blurted, "Hello Carmen. Bray sent me to check up on you," talking to her just like I do when I visit my dad.

On the morning he took his last breath, I cut a lock of his hair and stored it in a ziplock baggie. On the one-year anniversary of his death, I encased the hair in a locket of domed glass the size of a dime. People often ask if it's moonstone. I wear it at family events to bring him along, or when I need to feel his guidance or encouragement. I left it to my sister in my will— although currently it's in a storage unit in New Jersey with the rest of my stuff.

When my son graduated college, I pocketed a small stone from the university grounds to leave at my father's grave, sharing details of the epic downpour in the middle of the ceremony and how handsome his grandson looked in his cap and gown. When my niece got married, I picked up a stone at the reception and brought it to him with gossipy details about the insane amount of money my brother spent on her wedding. When I bought an apartment after the divorce, when I visited Estonia, when I finished my first novel... stones like souvenirs from the land of the living would accumulate on my kitchen counter, awaiting my next trip up to Boston to visit my mother. Sometimes when I'd get to his grave I'd find stones other people had left. Sometimes my siblings found mine. Leaving stones graveside is standard Jewish practice, but not ones annotated with dates and places in Sharpie. That's just what I'm like—in tremendous need to remain connected, to somehow remain visible to my one resolute champion on this strange and lonely planet. Last year we buried my mother next to him and I moved 2,711 miles away. Alone.

My father was born in 1931 in North Adams, a small town up in the Berkshires. Birth to death he spent within the state of Massachusetts; it was a different time. I'm now retired and living in this gem of a place. I'm excited about my future—this third (and final?) act. And just you wait, I'm going to make it a doozie. Even so, I'm mostly lonely and feel cut off from my family and friends, from home. It's difficult to picture the circumstances that would bring me within any kind of proximity to where my mother and father are buried. I miss them. Even the difficult one. I might be in my sixties, but I still want parents.

When I arrived at the church at the appointed time to pick up the title for Carmen's grave, Padre Josué wasn't there. Nor had he left the paperwork. I made a bit of a stink; I wasn't leaving without it. So while I waited, I went over to say hello. "Carmen, I don't want to be disrespectful, but should I be worried about this priest? I just want to make sure you're in a good situation. You know, long-term." I was alone in the crypt-room and it felt weirdly good to be sitting there with her. This complicated person I barely knew, who gave birth to a complicated person I treasure, and who's been my dear friend for 42 years (except for those eight or nine in the middle when you were… you know). I have to talk to Bray, this is not a good picture of her. "You were always so stylish. I'm trying to leave my New York behind and wear less black. I can still picture that burnt orange dress with the massive collar and no sleeves you wore to Bray's wedding. It was beyond cool."

It's quiet and peaceful here. A good room. A good place to be. I was in the middle of telling her, "Caesar had a growth in her snout and had to be put down and I don't understand why I'm still so brokenhearted over it, she was a million years old," when Padre Josué came in holding a manila folder. "Lo siento, no quiero interrumpirla," he said, backing out of the room. Everything was in order. There were signatures and seals. Names and dates. Including an accurate accounting of both the deposit (a deposit!) Bray paid and the balance I paid. There was never anything sketchy, only that in this era of global constant contact, humans remain terrible communicators.

Carmen
*

For me, I'd like a bench, in a park somewhere close to wherever my kids are. I don't even need a plaque. And if they move, just pick a new bench. A place where teenagers can make out. Junkies can pass out. Retirees can do Sudoku. And if I'm lucky, now and then, someone I love will stop by on their way home and walk me through the boring minutia of their day. Things that only a parent is willing to hear. Tell me every stupid detail.

I don't believe my father, as the person I knew, still exists somewhere, and there's no dead-parent-network where Carmen's relaying information to him. But the other day when I was walking home, as the clouds greyed and the air thickened, I ducked into the church to wait out the rain (okay, that rain was nowhere near imminent):

"My son just finished his second week at his new job in DC and seems to be settling in. But he and his colleagues went out for happy hour and he went to work the next day hung over. I know to keep my fat mouth shut or he'll never tell me anything, but I don't know. It doesn't mean he's not taking this opportunity seriously, does it? What else? Let's see. My daughter was just here visiting for a week. We took a cooking class. The teacher was crabby, but the food was amazing. I didn't know Arroz Verde had so many steps. You have to soak it, fry it, and steam it!"

I haven't left Carmen any stones, the Catholics don't do that. But I might anyway

***************

Roanne Kolvenbach is a writer, artist, entrepreneur, optimist and voter. Her visual and written work move fluidly between intimacy and structure, humor and grief, purposefully blurring the boundary between art and commerce. Her memoir Selvage about her mother’s recent and grueling death, was long-listed for the 2026 International Voices In Creative Nonfiction competition.

Armed with a BFA in Studio Art from Tulane University and an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, she’s lived in 8 apartments and 3 houses, has had 2 dogs and 2 children, been swept up in love 3 times (not including the children) and buried in grief twice. Her most favorite days begin early on Ballston beach with her dog Caesar, followed by grilling sourdough and tomatoes for her family to eat with fresh mozzarella and a little basil. Although now she lives in Mexico, writing and working in clay.

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