Chapter 3

I followed Silas to the vestry because next year had already been folded into his pocket. The enamel tin knocked against my knee with each step. Eighteen years on the same narrow path had taught me where the roots lifted the stones, but today I struck every one.

The committee woman was stacking programs beside the sink. She glanced at the tin, then at the mud drying along its chipped rim.

"We're finished in here."

"Next year's schedule."

Her hands stopped halfway through squaring the stack. Silas moved past me and placed three unused programs on top, aligning their corners with his thumb.

"It's only a draft," he said.

"Show me."

The woman opened the shallow drawer beneath the counter. Inside lay the forms I had typed last winter, each clipped to a month. I had fed names into those pages from kitchen notes, telephone messages, and scraps left under my door. Nobody remembered the dead in alphabetical order. I had made them fit.

She pulled out next June and kept one palm over it. "We changed one part."

"Which part?"

Silas reached for the page, but she gave it to me first. The paper trembled once between her fingers, then held still in mine.

The morning procession remained where I had placed it. Bell at ten. Seven roses. Families gathered at the cedar before the walk uphill. My instructions for the north gate had been copied word for word.

At the bottom, the final address had been changed.

Wren Ashgrove was still visible beneath one straight black line. Whoever had drawn it had used a ruler. The stroke began before the W and ended after the final e, neat enough to belong on a stone.

Above it, the space had been left blank.

"Who goes there?"

The committee woman rubbed a paper cut along her thumb. No one had been chosen. The day had been difficult, and next year needed to feel less personal. Her careful phrases landed around the blank space without touching it.

I set the tin on the counter. It tipped toward the sink, its missing corner useless on flat wood. I caught the handle before the rim struck porcelain.

At my mother's stone, that broken edge fitted the groove in the base. I could brace the tin there, pour slowly, and keep water off the carved face. I had done it each year for eighteen years. A new container slid flat and spilled where winter could freeze it.

"I'll keep the morning list," the woman offered.

I slid the schedule free of its clip. "No."

Her eyes went to Silas. He adjusted the three programs again, although their edges were already even.

"Wren, leave the draft here."

I folded it once and put it inside the tin. The page curved against the enamel, covering the rust circle at the bottom.

"I'll write my own."

Silas finally looked at me. His right hand rested beside the ruler on the counter, and a dot of black ink marked the side of his middle finger.

He reached for my wrist.