It is a scene that would feel hopelessly contrived in a novel: A church cemetery borders a family farm, and only a barbed wire fence separates the two. During a bad storm, the wind blows a wreath off a grave and into the cow pasture. A grandmother sends a child, who one day will become a writer, to place the wreath back on the proper side. He must do this respectfully, his grandmother tells him, so instead of merely dropping it back over, he slips through the barbed wire to set the wreath at the entrance. Before leaving, the boy pauses to read what is chiseled into the stones. Nearly all have birth and death dates and full names, but at the center of the front.
