On the fifteenth day Bryce was confident that he had been spared from the disease and was in no danger of passing it on to someone else.  He sent for Patsy and she returned home to find her mother and little brother gone.  Bryce took her out to a sparse grove of trees at the western corner of the land.  The graves showed the long and short mounds of earth that had new cut crosses driven into the ground at their heads.  Only the name Anna and Benjamin had been painted on each.

            “Of course I`ll have some head stones carved for then in town.  We don`t ever want to forget them.  That way they`ll always be with us just the same.”

            Pasty managed a weak nod.  She began to cry.  There were no sobs but the tears she shed came from deep inside.  It was as though the grief she felt found no other way but to express itself except through her tears.  Bryce had seen her cry after skinning a knee or cutting her finger.  This was different.  It came from deep inside her.  It was though her soul struggled to clean away the dark and weighty things that it experienced.

            Patsy started to collapse on her mother`s grave.  Bryce reached up and caught her.  The moment his arm caught her she became as limp as a rag doll.  She did not care what happened to her.

            “Let me die, too,” she whispered in her father`s ear.

            “And what will I do, sweetheart?  Then I will be all alone.  I need you with me so I can keep going.”

            Bryce struggled with his own tears.  He had never seen his Patsy this way before.  Then again, she had just found that half of her family, her bedrock, had been jerked out from under her.  He would have to be strong for both of them.