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As everyone gets in their auto or carts to leave, Blum, Hester, and Maddock walk out across the fields toward the creek and I think how good it is to see Isaac acting like a regular man, a man who has friends Even before his collapse, when he was a functioning physician, I don’t think he had friends Come to think of it, neither did I, not many anyway, and not close

From where I stand toward the back of the cemetery, I can look down Spruce Mountain toward the Hope River We are on the green side, and I see, on the other, blackened forests and fields all the way to the west

The golden forsythia bush next to the barn rings like a churchbell

Flowers

"No one brought any flowers for the graves!" Patience says after everyone is gone and the four of us are taking down the hoet soher baby out of the sling and handing her over "You take the kids We have to find flowers!"

It’s almost dusk I’m dead tired and would just like to lie down, but I do what she says In the field by the barn we find daisies and h for all the graves

"Isaac is carving the sign for the cemetery What do you want it to say?" I ask as we turn back

Patience doesn’t hesitate She must have had it all planned

HOPE MEMORIAL CEMETERY

DEDICATED TO THE HEROES OF

THE HOPE RIVER WILDFIRE OF 1935

"WE ARE ALL STRONGER THAN WE THINK"

Back at the gravesites, we kneel again and spread out our flowers, a blanket of color to cover the dead, white, yellow, and pink Patience surprises n of the cross "Mrs Kelly," she shrugs as if that explains it "She was Catholic"

I think about thathow little parts of those we love are alive in us, even when the beloved is gone

"What happens to them?" I ask "Drake and Beef? The captain and Nate Bowlin? The Hucknells? Are they just flesh and bones tomore?"

"More," the midwife says firmly

"You sound so sure"

"Look around you," she says pointing down into the valley where the Hope reflects the sunset, a ribbon of red, and I’ain, but this time for the joy of it