Ashes Under the Willow Tree

Four days after his son's death, Andrew decides to end his military marriage. In the days before the cremation, he collects the boy's unused schoolbooks, cooks his favourite dishes for a last birthday, and asks his wife Jennifer Cassell to come home. She claims a mission instead and spends the night setting off fireworks with her childhood sweetheart, Phillip Lennox.

At the hospital Andrew meets Jennifer with Phillip and Phillip's son Tommy, the three of them looking like a family. She warns him not to trouble Phil, then leaves with them before he can say their son is dead. At home she orders him to wash Phillip's clothes and sorts through the boy's wardrobe for Tommy, stamping the clothes underfoot. Andrew asks her to sign a travel authorization, saying a relative has died, and she signs without reading.

As she leaves she hands him two milk candies meant for Tommy, telling him to give them to Cyrus. Andrew shuts the gate in her face, then takes his son to the crematorium alone.