I drove out to the cabin with Jamie in his Suburban two days later. Scott was just putting away the riding mower when we arrived. Jim’s new maid, Verneta, was inside preparing the bedrooms. We had brought sandwiches, and so the four of us sat at the table on the porch and ate. When we were finished, Jamie and I followed Scott out to the shed. We took shovels and picks and work gloves, and the three of us went out on Arch’s four-man ATV to the spot in the woods across the pond where Arch’s father was buried. The earth was soft and pliant for the first few feet but got denser and rockier below. Jamie threw himself into the labor, and the sweat dripped down from his shirt to stain his pants. Finally, Scott deemed the hole sufficiently deep and wide, and we sat on David Creigh’s bench. Scott opened the cooler he’d brought and took out three beers, and we drank them quickly and each had another, drinking more slowly the second time.

The next morning, we were up and ready long before the helicopter landed out in the center of the field. When it arrived, we carried Vanessa from the door to a bed Scott had made for her in the back of the pickup and again from the pickup into the cabin and back to the master bedroom. Scott drove the casket out to the clearing. Is there anything more heartbreaking than an infant’s casket? I know there must be, but I have never seen it.

Jim and Dolly and Nancy were there, and Arch had brought Arch’s mom and Bray Hudson, the rector at Saint John’s. Callie Whitaker, Nancy’s favorite caterer, had driven a van out earlier in the morning and prepared a buffet lunch. There was no set schedule; when Vanessa was ready, Scott would drive her out to the clearing, and the rest of us would walk. Bray Hudson would conduct a short service. Afterward, we’d come back to the house to eat. Vanessa and Arch would stay at the cabin while everyone else who’d come out on the helicopter flew back to Nashville. I was waiting to be told what to do.

For nearly an hour, Vanessa remained alone in the bedroom. Scott drove the priest to the clearing. Arch wandered down to the dock alone. The rest of us drank coffee and talked in hushed voices. I watched Arch, standing where we used to sit casting spinner baits for bream and bass until the sun set.

“Let me see if I can help her get dressed,” Nancy said.

She stood and smoothed her slacks and strode back to the bedroom, a hint of the old confidence in her gait.

“Maybe I should go check on Arch,” Jamie said.

“Probably better to leave him alone,” I said.