I leaned closer and laid my ear near his lips, and heard now, faintly, “Bury her.”

“Who, Papa?” I asked softly.

He closed his eyes. “Words.”

I placed my head upon his chest, the tears starting to spill slowly over onto my cheeks. “Words,” he whispered again.

“Bury me.” Then he seemed to strengthen and put his hand upon my head as if to hold me to his heart, and the dismal beat I heard chimed against those two strange words he had whispered. I wept steadily against him, my hands wrapped around his neck, my ear, my cheek, my very being listening to the life within him fade.

“Bury me—”

I raised my head and a great sob burst free, my tears now falling upon his blankets.

“Here,” he said at the last.

Only that.

Neither of us, I think, was prepared for the shock of our front windows on Pierpont Place already darkened by the heavy drapery marking his death. As the carriage drew to a stop, the front door with its knocker wrapped in black crepe opened slowly inward and the sad figures of our people ranged in the doorway behind Papa’s man, Mr. Tish, who walked down the steps to greet us. But Mama emerged from the carriage with her head held high and took Mr. Tish’s arm. Up we passed and into the house, through the long entrance hall and into the sitting room, where a cozy fire cast back the morning damp. Mama smiled her thanks at the murmured condolences of Miss Matchless, Hope and Ruella James, Cook Parsons and her little girl as one by one departed, until we were left alone. Mama took off her soft black bonnet and patted her hair, looking around. “Well,” she said quietly, then burst into tears.

That night, she walked from top to bottom of the house, flinging wide the doors of every chamber to pause on every threshold, her lamp raised high, shining the light deep into the wintry rooms, regarding the familiar arrangements of furniture and whatnots, of goods upon the pantry shelves, of small dressers and bedsteads in the servants’ attic rooms. And though I followed behind her, she did not seem to notice, nor was she aware of the women’s frightened faces as they stood in their doorways to gaze at our two figures illumined by a single lamp as we passed along the servants’ hall. That night, the living glided about the emptied house; and it was we who were the homesick ones, though home.