They found the shoebox, lined it with balled-up toilet paper and some grass Tyler insisted she pull from the lawn, and took the box, a measuring tape, and a spade back outside. Tyler watched as Josie gingerly scooped the bird into the box and closed the lid. Digging the hole was more difficult, and Josie struggled with it until Tyler was sure it measured a perfect eighteen inches.

“Do you want to put the box in the ground?” Josie asked.

He said nothing and turned the tape measure over and over in his hands.

“All right, well … I guess I’ll do it.” She placed the box carefully in the hole and stood. “Now we have to cover it up with dirt.”

Tyler stared at the tape measure, and Josie wondered if he was counting the rotations.

“I’m assuming you don’t want to do that either,” she said.

He was silent, and she knelt and filled the hole and then patted the dirt with the back of the spade. “Well,” she said, and stood, “that’s it. It’s done. We can go inside.”

“You said you have to say some things about the bird, you said you have to say prayers.” He didn’t look up, and Josie stared at the silver measuring tape in his hands, watched the sun glint off the corners.

“Right. Okay.” She dusted the dirt from her knees and took a deep breath. “He was a good bird,” she started. She was sure she had watched this scene on some bad sitcom. If she had thought to put a piece of bread or seeds in the box, she could have spoken about the bird’s journey, how he would eat the food on his long trip to the afterlife. She could have given a Ghanaian funeral, made the bird an Akan cardinal. “But now he’s someplace better,” she continued. She glanced at Tyler. He had stopped playing with the measuring tape and was now staring solemnly at the patted earth.