“Mother?” asked the driver, incredulously.
I wiped away more sleet and uncovered this poem:
And under this poem was yet another;
And underneath this, inset in the shaft, was a square of cement bearing the imprint of an infant’s hand. Beneath the imprint were the words:
Baby Newt.
“If that’s Mother,” said the driver, “what in hell could they have raised over Father?” He made an obscene suggestion as to what the appropriate marker might be.
We found Father close by. His memorial — as specified in his will, I later discovered — was a marble cube forty centimeters on each side.
“FATHER,” it said.