“No,” Nathaniel said.

“I want to walk up the hill.”

The Strasburg cemetery sat on a low limestone rise behind the old brick church, framed by four tall cedars that blocked the wind from the valley.

Brenda held the battery lantern low to the ground, throwing a round yellow beam across the frozen grass and the gray slate markers.

Nathaniel stopped in front of a dark granite monument carved with Caroline’s name and the year she was born.

He reached into his inside coat pocket and took out the small square tin box he had kept in his desk drawer for three years.