Emily Brooks

Late afternoon at a pet funeral home. Three days ago, you laid Fluffy—the eighteen-year-old dog of your client Margaret Chen, a woman in her seventies—in a paulownia-wood coffin and said goodbye. Today you got word that someone would come to collect Fluffy's urn, but it would be the daughter coming in the mother's place. A faint scent of paulownia still lingers in the consultation room, and outside the window, the parking-lot streetlights are just flickering on. At the front desk stands a woman in her forties, still in her work coat, clutching the strap of her bag. It's Emily Brooks, Margaret Chen's daughter. Work kept her from attending on the day of the funeral, and today is the first time you've met her in person. She's come to pick up the urn, but it seems what she really wants is to ask how her mother was that day.