Ángela’s Ashes Are Scattered at Sea

Ángela’s ashes are scattered at sea two days after her cremation, at a cliff associated with the Romanesque Chapel that Irene had moved there. The family follows Ángela’s written wishes, while the gathering turns a private farewell into a shared act of mourning. Its quiet ritual also becomes the setting for an unexpected reunion: Diego arrives as Bea is still struggling with the four months she has spent trying to put him out of her mind.

The Notebook and Ángela’s Wishes

The scattering is guided by the Hello Kitty Red Notebook Ángela left behind. She had been writing when she died, and the notebook was addressed to Bea. After the wake and cremation, Bea withdrew to her old bedroom with it, aware that her recent worries now seemed small beside her mother’s death. She embraced the notebook before opening it, finding in the object a remaining connection to Ángela and to the months they had shared at home.

The notebook also disclosed how much Ángela had kept to herself. She had learned months earlier, after medical tests, that her heart would not last much longer, though she did not know exactly how much time remained. Bea explained to the family that Ángela had avoided saying this aloud because she hoped that keeping it unspoken might prevent it from happening. She had nevertheless been writing notes, leaving her family words they could encounter after her death rather than confronting them with the prognosis beforehand.

Those notes carried Ángela’s attention beyond the arrangements for her ashes. In a message to Débora, she acknowledged that her daughter had inherited her gift of empathy, while making clear that Débora did not have to continue her mother’s consultation work. She also praised Débora’s photographs, including one of Teo and the child, and allowed that art could be a way to empathize with others and channel pain. In another note, Ángela urged Bea and her sisters to make peace, suggesting that her death might already have brought them closer. The family therefore approached the farewell with Ángela’s own understanding of their relationships still active among them.

The Gathering at the Cliff

Ángela had chosen the cliff as the place where she wanted her ashes scattered. It was one of her favorite places, although she used to tease Irene that moving the Romanesque Chapel there had turned it into a pilgrimage site. In the notebook, Ángela treated that change with characteristic humor: she anticipated that her choir friends, the priest, and many of her patients might interpret the scattering as a sign that she had finally joined their religious fold. She was willing to let them believe it, even joking that a mass or two would not harm her.

The family planned to go two days after the cremation and initially hoped to keep the occasion private. News spread, however, and many people wanted to accompany them. They could not bring themselves to turn anyone away; Bea believed Ángela would have welcomed their presence. The visitors’ support mattered to the family as well. In the days after the death, being surrounded by other people helped them continue through a loss they could not carry alone.

The Scattering and Its Aftermath

The October day was clear, with no clouds and a calm sea. The weather spared the family the mishap Bea had imagined the night before: she had repeatedly pictured a treacherous northerly wind blowing Ángela’s ashes back over them. Instead, the ashes fell into the water and disappeared over the waves. Bea’s farewell marked the moment without softening its finality; the family watched the remains vanish into the sea at the place Ángela had chosen.

Afterward, Bea’s father asked what they should do with the empty urn. The family considered keeping it as a memento, then wondered what people usually did with one. A voice from behind offered an ordinary, gently comic possibility: the speaker had left an empty urn in the attic and later found his daughter using it as a bathtub for her Barbies. That practical anecdote loosened the solemnity without undoing the grief. The urn, once the container for Ángela’s remains, was now simply an object whose future the family could decide for themselves.

Diego’s Arrival

The speaker was Diego. He had come to the area on business and stopped by, dressed in a fitted black suit and dark shirt without a tie. When he removed his sunglasses, Bea recognized him; the afternoon sun made his hair look redder than she remembered. His arrival shifted the scene from a collective farewell to a private emotional encounter unfolding in front of her family.

Bea began to tremble. She wanted Diego to embrace her, or wanted to throw herself into his arms, but held back. Inwardly, she registered the contradiction of having spent four months denying him, trying not to remember their life together and learning to ignore him, while feeling glad that he had come. Her father, apparently reading her distress, suggested that Diego take her for a walk so she could get away from the family for a while. Bea protested, though she recognized that he had understood what she needed. The scattering thus closes not with a resolution of her relationship with Diego, but with his return at the moment of her bereavement and the possibility of a conversation beyond the family gathering.