Chapter 23: Two Names on One Stone

I told Dean yes, with three conditions.

She would stand at the foot of the grave and no nearer.

She would not speak unless Hannah spoke to her first.

And she would not touch me.

On Saturday morning the maple had begun to turn, and the whole hill was red and gold.

The surgeon's laboratory had confirmed it the night before, on a single page.

The baby in the ground was a Winslow, born the same night I was.

The girl who had been buried under my name had been loved every hour of her life.

I held that page in my coat pocket all the way up the gravel path.

The little white casket sat on a bier by the open ground.

My five brothers stood around it in dark suits.

They shifted their weight.

"We'll carry her," Dean said.

"Pa did it the first time."

"Pa would have cried," the boxer muttered.

"Pa would have cried and said it was ragweed," said the youngest.

The five of them lifted the small box together, each with one hand.

It was so light that the boxer made a noise in his throat.

They carried it to the new place, beside the old, where a mason had dug a deeper bed.

Hannah walked behind them with her hand on my arm.

Tiernan stood at the back of the little crowd with his hands folded.

Kaitlyn stood beside her father in a plain black coat.

She held a small bunch of roadside wildflowers, because she did not know what else to bring.

A pastor said a few words, and I did not hear them.

I was looking at the foot of the grave.

Janet stood exactly where I had told Dean she could stand.

She wore the black wool coat, and her hands hung at her sides.

The monitor showed above her shoe.

She did not look at the casket.

She looked at the stone.

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