1782
It had just turned dark, and the man stood in the graveyard looking at the newly laid stone in front of him. Forty-five years. It was hardly fair, but then he had refused to allow Canan to help. Canan bent down and traced the letters and then the numbers on the grave. They couldn’t be made more perfect. This was all that he could do for Salem now. Canan had held him when he’d the left the world, but now Salem was gone, and Canan was all alone.
“You’ve done beautiful work,” a woman’s voice said from behind him.
“But what macabre work,” Canan said as he turned to see Rosetta. She was bundled in a black shawl covering a black dress. Her stomach protruded, and Canan thought of the life growing inside of her.
“But necessary,” Rosetta said. “He would have loved it, as far as these thing
