Vern felt strange in his suit. He knew he must look as strange as he felt. He had never worn a suit before, let alone a necktie. Not ever. Miss Warner had bought it for him in town and persuaded him to wear it. “Wear it out of respect,” she had said. Vern didn’t see how a necktie was respectful, not when Paul himself had hated them. But it wasn’t worth arguing about. Miss Warner could keep a small argument burning for several decades. He’d never exchanged a cross word with her, and he didn’t want to start now. Besides, he wanted Paul to be respected, so he wore the ugly thing.

It was impossible not to tug at the tie every few seconds. Pete tugged at his tie too. Their neckties were nooses, reminding them of what today was all about.

Over the past days, Vern had cried so hard his neck muscles hurt. He had never cried that hard. Not even when his own father went on to glory. Vern had sat in his bunk behind the barn, sobbing into a pillow so nobody would hear him. It was the end of the world, he thought. The real end. The earth felt hollow and dead. Nothing was the way it had been when Paul was alive. Nothing. There was no sunshine and no sounds of birds. It was like living in a graveyard.

Pete and Vern had pooled money together for a pauper’s funeral. Miss Warner gave them a burial plot that had been in her family at the Methodist church. Still, Pete and Vern were eleven dollars short when they paid the undertaker.

The funeral consisted of nothing more than a pine box, a linen sheet, and a Methodist preacher. Pete and Vern dug the grave themselves.

The long walk to the cemetery, with Paul in his narrow box, felt odd to Vern. It was as though these events were happening to some other family, not his. It was like a different Vern was grieving for a different Paul, not the real Vern and the real Paul. It was as though somewhere in the world, the real Vern and Paul were still out there living and doing what they’d always done, replacing roofs, cooking hogs, picking tobacco, and raising young’uns.

Pete, Vern, and two other men lowered Paul’s pinewood box into the deep hole using ropes. It was more difficult than Vern had thought it would be. The rope slid out of his grip and burned his hands. Another man lost control of the casket too. Paul’s box slammed into the pit. The lid popped loose, and his white hand could be seen flung outside the box. Those who’d gathered to pay their respects pretended not to notice what had happened.