Aboriginal Landscape

You’re stepping on your father, my mother said, and indeed I was standing exactly in the center of a bed of grass, mown so neatly it could have been my father’s grave, although there was no stone saying so. You’re stepping on your father, she repeated, louder this time, which began to be strange to me, since she was dead herself; even the doctor had admitted it. I moved slightly to the side, to where my father ended and my mother began. The cemetery was silent. Wind blew through the trees; I could hear, very faintly, sounds of  weeping several rows away, and beyond that, a dog wailing. At length these sounds abated. It crossed my mind I had no memory of   being driven here, to what now seemed a cemetery, though it could have been a cemetery in my mind only; perhaps it was a park, or if not a park, a garden or bower, perfumed, I now realized, with the scent of roses — douceur de vivre filling the air, the sweetness of  living, as the saying goes. At some point, it occurred to me I was alone. Where had the others gone, my cousins and sister, Caitlin and Abigail? By now the light was fading. Where was the car waiting to take us home? I then began seeking for some alternative. I felt an impatience growing in me, approaching, I would say, anxiety. Finally, in the distance, I made out a small train, stopped, it seemed, behind some foliage, the conductor lingering against a doorframe, smoking a cigarette. Do not forget me, I cried, running now over many plots, many mothers and fathers —