I arrive at the cemetery on a cold, overcast day. The gray sky and chilly breeze make me want to finish my work quickly, and then I feel guilty about not spending more time here. The trees are completely leafless, and their bare twigs form lacy circular shapes against the dull clouds. I stare for a moment at their geometric perfection; it will be months before they leaf out again. When the leaves fall in the autumn, it happens so suddenly, within a span of a few weeks. Like when people die -- it happens so suddenly.

I carry a rake, a broom, a large trowel that I use as a digging tool, a plastic yard-debris bag, and a foam kneeling pad. In a few minutes I have arrived at the block where my parents' graves are located, and I lay the equipment on the ground. Sweeping the stones and raking the surrounding grass for leaves, twigs, and windblown debris of paper and plastic takes only a brief time; I know that the wind will blow more debris into the area later, but for today, at least, the graves will not look neglected. Then with foam pad and trowel in hand I look around for any weeds that may have sprouted and grown during the latter half of summer. When I spot one, I kneel down on the pad, loosen the earth around the weed with the trowel, and pull the weed out. It has rained recently, and the ground is soft and moist, even muddy in the depressions. All of this takes less than fifteen minutes.

Though the weather is raw, I don't leave right away. Getting up stiffly from my pad, I take a seat on a nearby bench for a few minutes. Mum and Dad deserve that. I can't help feeling that if I left as quickly as possible, they would somehow know. I face the gravesite and its double headstone with their names engraved, and think about my childhood with them.

I was born in the waning days of the Great Depression, shortly before the outbreak of World War Two. One of my earliest memories is of my mother pulverizing sugar cubes to make granulated sugar. She laid the cubes between two layers of tea towels and rapped them steadily with a hammer while I stood and peeped over the edge of the kitchen table, watching her. Looking back, I assume that sugar was in short supply in those days, possibly rationed because of the war; she was probably lucky to get her hands on sugar in any form.

My other earliest memory is being bathed in a round metal basin in the kitchen sink, sitting in the basin and holding onto the rim with my little hands. We didn't have a proper bathroom in our little row house in Cokeworth, just a loo in a little shed attached to the side of the house; when I was older I bathed, like my parents and my brother, in a big metal bath set on a square of oilcloth on the kitchen floor, in water made warm by the boiling contents of kettles heated on the stove. Our house had two small bedrooms upstairs and no front garden; the door opened directly onto the street.

My dad went into the mill at the age of twelve. He worked hard and didn't drink his money away, because he wanted to provide for my mum, my brother, and me. He kept us in school until we were sixteen years old. Then I went into the mill, but the four extra years of schooling made a difference for me. I was able to move up to a supervisory post and afford a better house for my wife and the two daughters who came along. It was higher up on the hill, farther from the river, although still within sight of the chimneys of the mill. It had an indoor bathroom and three little bedrooms, so each girl could have her own. It had a tiny front garden, as well as a back garden, and a bay window in the front room.

When I was a boy, I was a bit of a trouble-maker, but not on purpose. Some of my mates were free with their fists when someone crossed them, or they would throw stones or swing pieces of wood like cudgels. They weren't averse to a scuffle or a dust-up to settle a dispute. I had my share of ill-temper, like any boy, but I had less control of the consequences. Rocks could fly through the air when I was angry, even though I was sure I hadn't actually thrown them, or a branch would fall from a tree and strike my foe, even though I hadn't actually swung it. I was frightened by the unpredictability of these events -- I have always wanted to be in control of my actions -- and I learned that I could do so by keeping my moods strictly in check. It is possible, if you try, to develop an extremely even temper.

My mates took to calling me "Peaceful Percy" because I never fought or argued. I didn't like that moniker, at least not the "Percy" part, because Percy is not, in my mind, a very masculine name, and at any rate my name is Edward. But they just meant it in fun.

I have maintained my peaceful demeanor all my life, and it has stood me in good stead. My money hasn't been wasted on excessive liquor, fines for disturbing the peace, replacement costs of destroyed property, or lost wages, so I have been able to take good care of my family. I thought I had it all figured out.

My mum died in her fifties from some female complaint -- I was never too sure about the details -- and we buried her here in the Cokeworth cemetery. While my dad lived we all kept her gravesite neat, sweeping off the dead leaves, scouring the lichens off her modest tombstone, and pulling the weeds. But my brother moved away and my father became more feeble, so it all fell to me. Our last visit each year was always in October, after the leaves had finished falling and the weeds had finished growing. When he died at the age of eighty, we buried him beside my mum, and for the last five years I have done the grave-tending alone. Last year I laid my wife to rest in this cemetery also, in a newer area some distance from my parents' graves. It seems to be a pattern in my family -- the women die too young, but the men just go on and on.

I remain on the bench for maybe five minutes, knowing I will start feeling cold if I don't get moving again soon. Even in wool pants, a thick coat, and a watch cap, I can feel the chill trying to work its way into every crevice of my clothing. No one else is visiting the cemetery today. Why would they? The beauty of spring and summer has totally vanished, and even the red and yellow leaves that lend a final brilliance to the very end of the growing season have turned brown, shriveled, and fallen. Tomorrow is November first, All Saints' Day, the entrance into the darkest months of the year. Maybe people will come tomorrow.

I look right and left once more before standing and gathering my tools, as if to reaffirm that I am entirely alone, but now, in the final moments of my visit, I see another figure approaching on the path, a woman who appears to be about my age. Somehow I am not surprised. Most of the people buried here were old, and those of us who remember them are only a little less old. The youngsters have no reason to come to a cemetery.

When she nears the bench where I am sitting, the woman stops and regards me. She is wearing a russet-colored knitted cap, from under the edges of which there escape a few wisps of graying hair. A brown knee-length coat with wooden buttons, a knitted off-white muffler wrapped around her throat, thick stockings, and sensible shoes make up her costume. Her hands are buried deep in her coat pockets and her shoulders are hunched slightly as if to keep the cold air from seeping in around her collar. Despite her warm layers she appears to be slight of build, as though life has not been generous to her.

I sense that she would like to rest on the bench but hesitates to intrude on my space, so I smile slightly and invite her to sit down if she wishes. "There is plenty of space for two," I say, moving my tools, which had been leaning up against the bench seat.

"Thank you," she says, seating herself on the other end of the bench. "I've been here visiting a family grave, and it's rather a long walk back home. But I won't rest long. It gets dark so early now." She looks down at her lap, not facing me.

"I think we're the only people here," I say. "I've been doing some grave-tending too, my parents' graves," and I gesture with my hand toward the bare grass and the headstone.

"I saw you when you came in," the woman remarks, "but I thought you were the sexton because you were carrying tools." Now she is looking me in the face, and I see how the cold air has made her cheeks pink and taken away some of the drabness.

"Me? Oh, no," I reply, laughing a little. "I'm not the sexton." I know the sexton who serves the old church that is located at the edge of the cemetery; he is a short, rather rotund, bald man who looks nothing like me. "I'm just an ordinary ex-millworker, finishing out my working years as a machinist until I can claim my pension." The mills closed down some years ago; that is why I have changed jobs.

"Have you lived here all your life, then?" the woman asks me. It is a generic opening remark, I notice, but inviting of more conversation than a bland comment about the weather. I feel a tiny spark of pleasure at the prospect of having a brief conversation with someone before returning to the solitude of my house.

"Yes." I tell her, "I worked in the mill, like my dad. I'm afraid my life has been pretty unexciting. Are you a Cokeworth native too?"

"No," the woman says, shaking her head slowly, "I moved here after I married."

"But you have family graves here," I state, recalling her earlier remark.

"Just two," the woman says pensively. "I came to visit my son's grave today."

"I am so sorry." No words can do it justice. Of all the things that can happen to you, the death of your child is the worst. I should know. The woman looks away briefly toward to west, where the sun is getting ready to set, peeping out from between the clouds. The sun is so far south at this time of the year.

"You have someone else here also?" I continue.

"Just my husband. He died of drink some years ago, when he was fifty. The heavens forgive me for saying it, but it wasn't much of a loss. He was a sorry excuse for a husband." I am a little startled by her frankness. She turns her head to face me again and adds, "But I am very sad about losing my son. He was a sweet boy and so smart, so clever. I was so proud of him. Now I have no one."

"What did your son do?"

"He was a teacher. But he never married and I have no grandchildren. Do you have children?"

I notice that her eyes are pale blue. They harmonize with her gray hair and the rusty-reddish cap. Speaking of her child has animated her expression; he must have been the brightest spot of her existence, it seems to me.

"I had two daughters and two grandsons, but one of my daughters has passed away." You see, I think, we have something in common.

"Does she lie here also?" the woman inquires in kindly tones.

"No," I say ruefully. "She lies alongside her husband in his hometown. This is such a bad business, children dying before their parents."

"Yes," the woman reflects, frowning. "It should never happen like this. But at least you have your other daughter and your grandsons. I hope they are a comfort to you and your wife."

"My wife has passed away also, and I rarely see my daughter or her family. They live near London." (Make that I never see them. She has stayed estranged from us because she always thought we favored her sister. She almost never brought her own son to see us, and never the other boy. I haven't seen her since her mother's funeral.)

The woman is silent for a few moments. Her hands, encased in tan gloves, are out of her pockets now, and she twists them together briefly. "You don't mind talking about your family?"

"No," I answer. "I am too old to care what people think about me now."

"I know what you mean. I no longer have anything to hide, or anyone to be afraid of, or even anything that anyone would take away. When I turned fifty, I decided to stop caring what people think about me."

"You know what?" I say. "I don't believe that people are thinking about us at all." It isn't meant as a joke, but it sounds like a little joke anyway, and the woman smiles. I am glad she smiles; I am glad I said "us", her and me against the impersonal world.

I want to get up, walk, stretch my muscles, but I don't want to leave her here alone on this bench, so I say, "Would you like to show me your son's grave?"

She looks up at my face as I stand. "I can show you where it is, but there's not a tombstone yet. I am trying to save up money, bit by bit, to buy one eventually. I never expected to buy one so soon. He was only thirty-eight." Her face is looking sad again as she stands. Her head comes only to my shoulder; she seems too small for such a burden.

As we direct our steps toward the region of the cemetery where the most recent interments are located, I decide to introduce myself.

"My name is Edward Evans, by the way."

"Eileen Prince."

We come to the location of the grave. Even without a stone, she knows exactly where it is; the traces of the disturbance of the earth are not entirely obliterated yet.

"What was his name?" I ask.

"Severus."

"Severus Prince?"

"No, Severus Snape. Snape was my husband's name. But he's gone now, my son's gone, I have no more connection to that name. So I have gone back to my original name. It seems more like me."

"Why did you marry him, if you don't mind my asking?" The question seems a little bold, but we have both already declared that we are beyond caring what people might think.

"You can guess. He was charming, I thought I was in love, I fell pregnant, then everything went downhill." She doesn't look at me as she says this, just continues staring at the bare earth of her son's grave.

"That's the short story?" I ask.

"Are you interested in the long story? He was older than me, and good-looking in a dark, craggy way. And he seemed self-assured, self-confident, like he could take care of me. I didn't have any other boyfriends -- I was shy in those days -- and I was flattered that he paid attention to me. Then I fell pregnant, and so we married. But he was no great shakes as a husband. He couldn't hold a job for very long because he was always getting into arguments, and it was always the other person's fault. So we lived a hardscrabble existence, and he took out his frustrations on me and our boy. And there was the drinking; that didn't help."

She sighs deeply. "I don't know. I don't mean to put all the blame on him. I'm sure I wasn't what he wanted in a wife either. I could have put up with it for myself, but not for my boy. I sent him away to a boarding school up north. That was so hard to do. It tore my heart out, but I needed to get him away from my husband. There were no good answers, just different degrees of bad." She is silent for a few moments, during which I don't know what to say, and then she asks, "What was your family like?"

I feel a little apologetic because my story is better than hers. "I was pretty lucky, in comparison. My dad didn't have a lot of schooling, but he was always kind and loving. When he was close to dying, I asked him once if he regretted anything and he said no. He said he had a chance, once, to send me away to school on a scholarship, but he turned it down because he couldn't bear to be parted from me. He said, 'You were such a good son. I could tell you would succeed, no matter what school you went to. I didn't want to send you away. I wanted to keep you.' And he did. We lived here in this same town, and I had him for a good long time. We always got along together well."

Eileen lifts her face to look at mine. "I wish my son had had a father like yours. So many things would have been different. It sounds like your family did it right."

A twinge of guilt steals over me for suggesting that my family was trouble-free, and I need to set the story straight. "Maybe it's just luck. My mates called me Peaceful Percy, but I couldn't make peace in my own family."

She looks at me quizzically.

"My older girl -- I hardly ever see her now. My younger girl, the one who died, won a place in a special school up north, and even though we loved them both equally, my older girl could never believe that. She was jealous of her sister's success. She wasn't happy with herself, so she persisted in believing that no one else was happy with her either. I don't know what more we could have done to change that. She and her sister were different people, that's all. My brother and I are different people too, but we get along."

Eileen continues staring at the the bare ground with a scattering of small weeds that have sprouted out of the disturbed soil. Even bundled in her warm clothes, she looks so small and vulnerable. Once she had a family, someone to love. Now it has all shrunk to this, a patch of barren earth in an obscure cemetery under a cold, leaden sky.

"I missed my boy so terribly, but I knew it was for his own good."

"I missed my daughter too." I think to myself that I still have hopes of repairing the relationship with my remaining daughter, but Eileen has no one now. I dare not express this thought. It is time to move on.

"Let's walk back toward the gate, and you can show me the kind of tombstones you like," I suggest.

"Yes, I should be going before it gets dark," she agrees.

We walk back along the paths, commenting on the stones. I try to keep my remarks very non-committal because I don't know her taste or her budget, and I fear speaking ill of a design she actually admires. There are tall, old-fashioned columns topped with angels; scroll-shaped stones engraved with old-fashioned poetry; cherubs and little lambs; flat, spare stones with only a name in Roman letters and a bare birth-year and death-year. Some declare their owner's military service. Some have only a man's name and, engraved underneath it, the single word "Wife". Some modern-looking stones include engraved sprays of flowers and photographs of the deceased.

Finally she points to a grave marker of polished granite, flush with the grass, not expensive-looking but beautifully done, with the deceased's full name and full dates of birth and death, a line of inscription that reads "At Peace", and an attractive scrolled border. "Like that one," she says. "Simple, but dignified and lovely. And I could afford it."

"What would it say?" I ask.

"Severus Snape, January 9, 1960 to May 2, 1998. Beloved Son," she answers.

"That would be very nice," I say. "Your son was only a few days older than my daughter; she was born in January 1960 also. Today is the anniversary of her death. October 31, 1981. Seventeen years ago."

I glance at Eileen; she has an odd, unreadable expression on her face. "That was an unforgettable day," she says.

"Yes, unforgettable, " I answer. "The death of a child is so catastrophic. The second of May of this year must be unforgettable for you too."

We arrive at the bench again, not far from the main gate. I stop and say, "I need to scrape the mud off my boots before I get in my car," and I sit on the bench, pull the trowel from my sack, and, crossing each ankle over the opposite knee in turn, scrape the mud from the sides of my boot soles. But there is also mud compacted between the treads of my soles, and the trowel is too broad and blunt to get it out, so I pick up a twig to pry out the mud, but the fallen twigs are dry and brittle; they snap easily under pressure. I should have brought a nail. I don't want to track this mud into my car.

"I have a better stick. You can use this," she says, and she pulls a slender brown stick from her pocket and holds it out to me. I reach to take it in my hand and stare in confusion. It looks too good for the task, polished, with a little carving at the thicker end.

"Are you...sure?" I stammer. "This looks awfully nice."

"Go ahead," she laughs. "It won't be damaged."

The stick in my hand is awakening old, buried memories. I gaze at it, shaking my head slowly, and an image swims into my vision, an image of my dead daughter's wand. I have not seen a wand since she died, but I feel certain that that is what this is. A wand. And now it is a mud-digger? I feel paralyzed; then I look up at her again and see the look of bright expectation on her face. She really means that I should do this, so I do. As I lever the hunks of mud out of the treads of my boots, I remark, "This stick reminds me of my late wife's knitting needles. If you have another one, you could do some knitting." I feel compelled to pretend that I don't know what it really is. Maybe she does have another one, inherited from her husband or her son.

"Yes, I could," she agrees. "Making scarves. That would be a higher use for it."

Not so high as its original purpose, I think. Do these things wear out? Run down? Is it non-functional now? I do not ask.

When my boot soles are clean I wipe off the wand with my pocket handkerchief and inspect it; it appears undamaged. I hand it back to her and she stows it in the depths of her coat pocket.

The sun is setting, and I know the temperature will fall swiftly.

"Let me give you a ride home so that you don't have to walk," I say. "It will be cold and dark soon." She demurs at first; she does not want to put me out of my way, but I offer the idea that we parents of dead children should stick together and support one another, and she agrees. I put the tools in the boot of my car and then open the car door for her. My father taught me good manners.

"I have no one to go home to. If you do not either, would you like to stop at a tea shop for a cup of tea and a little bite to eat?" I do not usually speak so boldly, but at my age I now have nothing to be afraid of and nothing to lose.

"A warm and cheerful place? That would be lovely, but you must let me pay for my own." That is okay with me. I am Peaceful Percy. I will not argue. And there is something we need to talk about.

We go to a little tea shop I sometimes patronize. In honor of the day, there are jointed cardboard skeletons dangling in the windows of the shop, and streams of fake cobwebs hang from the lighting fixtures. Little orange gourds about the size of apples, nestled in sprigs of artificial autumn leaves, adorn each table. We choose a table and order scones and tea.

"Have you already inquired about ordering a headstone for your son?" I ask.

She nods her head. "There's no place in Cokeworth, but I did telephone a monument firm in Manchester and asked about sizes and prices. We talked for a while. A big stone is beyond my budget, of course, but one like the one I showed you at the cemetery will cost over six hundred pounds with installation. Right now I don't have that much money.

"I work as a bookkeeper, you see, but it's just a part-time job. After my husband died, I had to support myself, but I had no particular skills, so I took an office course. It wasn't easy to get a job, me being older and with no experience, but a small business took a chance on me. Maybe they figured I would work for less. Severus used to send me a little money also -- his bank made small monthly deposits to my bank, but that stopped after he died.

"Burying him took most of my savings, which weren't much to start with. I still have his house -- it's the house we lived in when he was a little boy. But it's in a bad part of town. After the mill closed a lot of the workers moved away -- but of course you know that yourself -- and a lot of the houses there are empty, boarded up, with broken windows. A bad sort has moved into that neighborhood, ruffians, people without jobs; some of them are squatters in empty houses that don't belong to them. After my husband died I was afraid to live there alone, so I moved to the flat where I live now, in a safer neighborhood away from the river.

"But I kept the house for Severus. When he was teaching he mostly lived...at his school, but he came back to Cokeworth occasionally, like during summers. I would have gladly let him stay with me at my flat, but he said there wasn't room enough there for two. He had so many books; that was because he was a teacher, you see.

"Now I suppose I should sell the house. I'll never use it again. But I don't think there are any buyers for a house in that depressed part of town. No one would ever want to live there, if they had a choice. Maybe some real estate developer will buy it all someday and tear down the houses and build something else."

She shakes her head ruefully. "It's hard to get motivated. I feel like I'm just stuck, after my boy died, and I'm not sure what I'm living for. I just keep going day by day. I suppose I should clean out the house, at least do something with Severus' books, before vandals break in and destroy everything."

Her mood is on a roller-coaster, with occasional ups but mostly downs. It is plain that she needs a friend; maybe she already has friends, but suddenly I doubt it, because why then would she be confiding in me? I do not ask Do you have any friends? for fear of sounding insulting, but it would be appropriate to offer to be a friend.

So I say, "You are right. But it sounds like an awfully big job for one person. Would you like me to help you? Half the work and twice the companionship? Maybe a used bookstore would take the books, after you pick out the ones you want to keep."

A subtle look of alarm spreads over her face. What's wrong with my suggestion? As she hesitates in answering, I start to put two and two together. Wands -- magic -- maybe the books are magic titles and she doesn't want me to see them. I back-track quickly.

"Or maybe his old school would want the books if they were related to his teaching. You could contact them and ask. Maybe people from the school would even be willing to come here and collect them, so you wouldn't have to do anything at all."

Her face brightens up instantly. "That a wonderful idea. I don't know why it didn't occur to me. Just to give them all to the school. That's such a load off my mind. That's what I'll do."

I sip my tea thoughtfully without replying. It would be easy to blunder ahead and try to solve all of this woman's problems right now, but I have learned over my lifetime that that's not a good idea. People don't want to have everything pointed out to them; they prefer to figure it out for themselves, even if it takes longer.

So we take tea and little bits of scones without speaking. Finally she starts nodding her head slightly, as if thinking positive thoughts, and then says, "Once the books are gone, it will be easy to clear out the rest -- old furniture and crockery. Just hire a lorry and haul it all to the rubbish heap."

"Well begun is half done," I agree. That's just an old adage that simply reflects what she has said. But I cannot resist adding a new suggestion. "Maybe a secondhand dealer or a junk dealer would give you a few pounds for some of the items, money that could go towards your son's headstone."

There! I tell myself. I am going to stop giving advice. I have probably said too much already.

She looks thoughtful and then asks hesitantly, "Would you be willing to help me with that? I mean, hauling it all to the rubbish heap would be easy, and selling it to second-hand dealers would be more work, but you're right; that's what I should do."

I dare to reach across the table and give her hand a squeeze. "Of course. We parents who have lost children should stick together." She does not agree or disagree, but she smiles and does not pull her hand away before I release it.

We decide that she will contact her son's school right away and inquire whether they would like to send someone to pick up his collection of books. She will let me know when the books are gone, and then we can proceed to clean out the household goods. I give her my telephone number but do not ask her for her number, so that she will not feel pressured by calls from me. The next contact, if any, will be up to her.

We finish our tea and go out into the street, where the daylight is almost gone and the sky is a deep navy blue. The chilly breeze encourages us to walk quickly to my car. "You will have to direct me to your flat," I say, and I open the car door for her. When we arrive at her address, I hold out a hand and say, "It's been a pleasure meeting you and talking with you. Give me a call after you get rid of your son's books, if you want me to help you deal with the household goods. I will be happy to help you with them." We shake hands briefly, and although my father taught me to open car doors for ladies, I do not get out and do it because I do not want her to be worrying about whether I intend to try to come inside.

"Thank you for your kindness. I will call," she says, and lets herself out of the car. I wait until she is safely inside the building and then drive home to my three-bedroom house, suddenly feeling how empty it is, after all the years I have lived here.

As the days go by, I wonder if anything will ever come of our conversation, or whether Eileen has, on further reflection, decided not to trust this absolute stranger who has fortuitously dropped into her life. Maybe her friends, if she has any, have warned her to have nothing to do with me. In that case, it's too bad because I only mean to help. So I am a little surprised on the morning of Sunday, November 8, to get a telephone call from Eileen.

"Hello, Edward, this is Eileen, the woman from the cemetery. I hope you remember me."

"Oh yes, of course I remember you." I'm not senile quite yet. "I'm glad you called." Then I am silent, waiting for whatever she wants to say.

"I took your suggestion and contacted Severus' old school. They sent out a couple of teachers yesterday and a half dozen robust older students, and they packed up all the books and took them away."

"That's wonderful! Did you keep any for yourself?"

"No, there was nothing personal there. They were all academic. I'm sure they'll be of more use at the school. But I remembered what you said about helping me with the household goods, and I wondered if that offer still stands. If it's not too inconvenient, of course."

"Oh, it's certainly not too inconvenient. I'm happy to do it. Are you free this afternoon? I'm thinking we should just take a look at what's there and decide how to manage. What we'll need in the way of boxes and a lorry."

Eileen is happy with this plan, and at one o'clock in the afternoon I stop in front of her flat. She emerges from her front door immediately, and this time I do open the car door for her. We drive through the town, always going downhill in the direction of the river, through streets which are known to me from my earlier years but which seem shabbier than I remember. Eileen directs me through many turns and corners in a neighborhood of small brick row houses, all rundown and many seemingly abandoned. I see broken and boarded windows, graffiti spray-painted on walls, and windblown bits of garbage. Finally we go down a narrow cobblestone street which is a cul-de-sac and park at the very end. One of these houses? Good Lord, I think. No wonder she didn't want to live here. I'm amazed that her son did.

We get out of the car and Eileen unlocks the front door of the last house. Before entering the bleak little building I glance back over my shoulder, hoping my car will be safe in the street. I have not seen anyone in this alley, but who knows who might be hiding behind a curtained window, waiting to steal my hubcaps.

Inside the little house I experience a feeling of deja vu. The floor plan is acutely familiar to me; the front door opens directly into a cramped sitting room, a door to the right will lead into the kitchen, where earlier generations surely took baths in a large metal tub set on the floor near the stove, and beyond that would be a door leading to the back garden and the little shed. In the sitting room, opposite the kitchen door, is the narrow steep stairway leading to the upper floor, which would have two little bedrooms directly over the ground floor rooms. I grew up in such a house.

The gray daylight filtering through the dirty front windows reveals an unusual alteration -- the interior walls of the sitting have been fitted with plain wooden shelves, now empty, but extending from floor to ceiling. In fact, even the door at the foot of the staircase, purposed originally to prevent the heat in the sitting room and kitchen from escaping up the stairs, is covered with empty shelves. Eileen's son must have had a prodigious number of books to necessitate all these shelves, even on the face of the door. What a piece of work it must have been for the teachers and students of his school to pack up and transport all those books in a single day! Perhaps he used this room as a study. I glance around, expecting to see a desk, but there are only a handful of shabby furnishings -- a sofa, chair, and little table. Even a secondhand dealer might not be interested.

"This is what's left of my son's stuff," Eileen tells me.

"There's not much here, is there?" I observe.

"No," she answers, "I took everything I wanted when I moved out."

"Shall we look at the other rooms?" I suggest.

"Yes," she answers. "Let's start with the kitchen."

There isn't much in there either, just a plain, battered wooden table and two thin wooden chairs, a few pieces of crockery in the cupboard and a scattering of culinary utensils. I peek out the back door and pass my eyes over the weedy garden, nothing more than an expanse of spindly stems and dead leaves. If there were ever any possessions out here, a rake or a spade, they have long since disappeared.

We ascend the dark, narrow staircase to the little bedrooms. Here we find a wooden bed in one room and a plain cot in the other, both still fitted with bedclothes, and an old-fashioned wardrobe in the room with the wooden bed. I open its doors and check the drawers, but it is empty. Apparently Eileen's son did not store clothing here permanently. No pictures, photographs, papers, trinkets...only the empty bookshelves hint at the personality of the former inhabitant.

Gazing around the barren bedroom, I observe, "Not much left of a person's life."

"No," Eileen answers, "I think he kept most of his things, the stuff that mattered, at the school. They sorted it out, but most of it was material for his teaching. In the end there was only one box of memorabilia that they gave back to me, most of it trinkets that I don't even know the significance of, and a photograph or two of people I don't recognize. I hate to admit it, but in these last years there was a lot about him that I guess I just didn't know."

She sighs deeply, looking around the room, and I suddenly remember that she herself lived here for many years in circumstances I do not want to imagine. This must be the bedroom she shared with her brutish husband. I am acutely aware of how hard her life has been -- a disastrous marriage, a dead son, decades of making do and hanging on. Only a great inner strength could have enabled her to endure it. If anyone deserves a happier future, it is she.

"What do you think we should do?" Her words break into my thoughts and recall me to the reason we are here.

"It will all fit into one lorry, I think. And probably I can find one of my mates to help lift the heavy pieces."

"It should be done soon, before the weather turns."

"Next Saturday, then?"

She nods. "I cannot believe how kind you are, and to someone you don't even know. I could never have done this by myself."

Oh, I'm sure you could have, I think to myself. You're a pretty tough lady.

We go back downstairs and make tentative plans for next Saturday. As we leave the house she asks, "Did you have to do all this when you lost your daughter? Clear out her possessions, I mean."

"No," I answer slowly, weary at the thought of that old memory. "When my daughter and son-in-law died, their house...well, there was an explosion at their house, and it was badly damaged. Just about destroyed, in fact. There wasn't much left to salvage."

"Oh, good heavens," Eileen exclaims. "I am so sorry to hear that. What a shock it must have been. What a tragedy."

"Yes," I say. "It was hard to bear." Impulsively I seize one of her hands with both of my own as we stand on the pavement in the thin, chilly sunlight. "It is good to be able to talk about it with someone who understands."

"I feel the same way too. It is good to talk about it." And she gives my hand a squeeze.

On Saturday morning I show up at Eileen's flat in my boss's lorry, with my boss as my helper. He has been very receptive to my request for a few hours' assistance for a poor widow who had lost her son, and is allowing the use of his lorry at no cost so that Eileen can direct her scanty funds toward the expense of her son's tombstone, not to lorry rental fees. He is a good, kind-hearted man; that is part of the reason I enjoy working for him.

The three of us go to her old house, where Eileen packs the bedclothes, curtains, and kitchen goods in cardboard boxes while my boss and I use a hand truck to move the larger pieces. The only difficult part is jockeying the wardrobe and the bedstead down the stairs, using the hand truck and some rope, but my boss and I are both spry and strong despite our age, and everything goes smoothly.

Within an hour it is all packed in the back of the lorry, and we drive to a secondhand shop, one of many located in Cokeworth. Eileen and the shop proprietor haggle briefly about the price she will receive; in truth the goods are not worth much and the proprietor needs to make his profit if and when the things are resold, but they settle on a sum and he pays her in cash.

My boss takes us back to Eileen's flat, where I get out of the lorry along with Eileen, and I tell my boss that I will walk home later. As he drives away, he gives me a grin and a wink; since my wife died, he has offered to introduce me to ladies who are acquaintances of him and his wife, and I have always declined. It never felt right.

I turn to Eileen. "Let's go down to a tea shop and celebrate a big job well done. What do you say?" She smiles and says, "That's a wonderful idea. I would love that." She puts her arm in mine and we walk down the street toward a commercial neighborhood. At a tea shop that blessedly has no cardboard skeletons, fake cobwebs, or even images of Guy Fawkes, I dare to broach an important subject over the teacups.

"It will be half a year until May second comes again, when the winter will be past and the days will be longer and the flowers will be blooming again. It would be so nice if your son had his tombstone by then."

"Yes, it would be," Eileen agrees, "but I doubt I could save the entire sum necessary so quickly. It will have to wait a while longer." She sighs and gently swirls the tea around in her cup, looking down at it.

I take a deep breath and plunge ahead.

"That's something I want to talk about. I would consider it a great honor if you would allow me to contribute somewhat to make it possible to get the headstone sooner." (If that statement sounds formal, it is because I composed it carefully and rehearsed it at home.)

Eileen looks up, startled. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, if we each contribute a little each month, maybe you can pay for the stone by May of next year. That would be so...satisfying, to see the lovely stone there on his grave with the sun shining on it." I can feel my heart hammering in my chest out of fear of how she might respond to this suggestion, but I need to say it, to take the chance. I have so little to lose now.

"Oh, no," Eileen exclaims. "I couldn't allow you to do that. It's not your responsibility. You have no obligation to pay."

My forearms are resting on the edge of the table, and I hold my teacup in my hands, turning it slowly round and round. Just as slowly, I try to explain.

"When my daughter and son-in-law died, I didn't...well, her husband's family was very wealthy, and his estate paid for everything -- the grave sites, the funeral, the headstones. I didn't have to pay a thing, not a farthing, even though she was my daughter. I got a free ride.

"But for you, you had to spend all your savings on the funeral, and now you're facing the cost of the headstone. It's all on your back. Sometimes life doesn't seem to be fair."

"Life is never fair," Eileen interrupted forcefully.

"No," I agree, "but maybe we can distribute the unfairness a little more evenly. I didn't have to pay for my daughter, but I can make up for that by helping your son. A year is long enough for him to wait."

She looks confused, conflicted. "I don't know." She shakes her head. I just wait, and there is silence between us; sometimes the right thing to do is to say nothing. While I wait I pick up another biscuit from the little china plate between us, and take a little bite. She will speak again.

Finally she sighs and says, "If we do what you say, if we can get the stone by next May, you must understand that I will pay you back. I will keep paying you every month until it is all paid back."

This is not exactly the same as sharing the expense equally, but it is more than I had realistically expected to achieve, so I will accept these terms gladly, without objection. Peaceful Percy will not ruin the deal by refusing to accept repayment. And who knows how she will feel by May?

So I consent to her stipulation that she will eventually pay me back, and then I steer the conversation to safer territory by asking what her son was like as a little boy and sharing some stories about my daughter's childhood. Eventually I ask the name of the monument firm she contacted earlier, and we agree that we will drive into Manchester on Saturday next, to visit them. I sincerely hope that the monument firm will be agreeable to our proposed monthly payment plan.

We part company on the pavement outside the tea shop. "Until Saturday," she says, and I echo, "Until Saturday." Then we both walk in opposite directions to our homes. I still do not have her telephone number.

Our trip to Manchester proves to be the first of many. At the monument firm Eileen picks out the design of the stone she desires and signs a contract for monthly payments until May 1999. For the first payment she opens her purse and carefully counts out the money in bills, while I write a check for my share.

"Now don't forget, I will pay you back," she admonishes me.

After leaving the office of the monument firm we drive through the streets of the city, admiring the lights and decorations that have been strung up on the buildings and in the shop windows in anticipation of the coming holidays, but I do not propose doing anything that will cost money because Eileen would probably insist on paying her own way, and these monthly payments might be stretching her budget.

Each month thereafter we drive into Manchester to make a payment in person (although it could have been done by post), and as we enjoy each other's company, these trips gradually take on the nature of dates. Now I can propose a meal in a little restaurant, or a visit to the cinema, and she allows me to pay her way, in the old-fashioned custom of dating that prevailed when we were young. I don't know how the present generation handles the question of who pays for what. No matter. We do things the way we learned. And now I have her telephone number.

The headstone is installed on Saturday, the first of May, 1999, a clear and sunny day. The sexton, Eileen, and I are at the cemetery when the lorry of the monument firm arrives, and we watch as the crew skillfully embeds the stone in its place, flush with the surface of the earth. As soon as the lorry pulls away, the sexton makes a call on his mobile phone, and in a few minutes the priest of the old church appears at the grave to say some prayers blessing the stone as a remembrance of the soul whose earthly remains lie beneath it.

Severus Snape
9 January 1960 - 2 May 1998
Beloved Son

The spring sunlight gleams off the polished surface. The task is complete.

Eileen turns to me and says, "I am so grateful to you for helping me bring this about. It seems so right. Finally I feel at peace, as if everything is finished."

She fumbles in her handbag. "I brought a picture of him to show you," and she holds out a photograph to me. I take it and study it, an unsmiling but not unhandsome young man with dark hair, a Roman nose, and a steady gaze.

He must resemble his father, I think, because he doesn't look much like Eileen.

I hand the photograph back and say, "Thank you for sharing this picture with me. It makes him seem more real."

What else is there to say? The headstone is in place. We have come a long journey together, but now we have reached the end.

"We have achieved what we set out to do," I begin, "but I don't really want this to be good-bye." I hesitate, not knowing how to continue.

"No, it cannot be good-bye," Eileen says in a surprisingly cheerful tone. "I still owe you payments for six more months."

I am a little taken aback. We have not spoken of her repayment for several months, but perhaps I should have known she would not forget about it. My initial impulse, at that first meeting in this very graveyard six months ago, had been one of assistance freely offered, but she always insisted on keeping the arrangement on a strictly business basis. Now I am glad that she did so, because it prevents our saying good-bye now and going our separate ways.

"Yes, you're right," I laugh. "I guess we're still sticking together."

I smile at her, thinking how much prettier this scene is in May than it was last year on Hallowe'en. Blue sky, golden sunlight, the intense green of new grass and new leaves, spots of pink and yellow color scattered across the park-like expanse where people have placed flowers on other graves. We need to get flowers, I think. Eileen herself is more animated today than when I first met her, her gray hair freed of its knitted cap and lying in soft curls around her face, and her thick brown coat of that faraway afternoon replaced by lighter clothing in bright spring colors that bring out the pink of her cheeks and the blue of her sparkling eyes.

"Listen," I say. "I'll be driving out to the town where my daughter is buried in a few weeks. I try to visit her grave at least once a year. Would you like to come with me? It's kind of a long way, about a three-hour drive, so I'll understand if you say no, but I'd really like to have your company."

Eileen smiles and takes my hand. "Certainly. I'll be happy to come. You have been so kind in showing concern for my son's final resting place, and I would be glad to reciprocate."

A few weeks later we make the long journey to Godric's Hollow in the West Country, a three-hour drive even though we can take the motorway for most of the distance. I used to take this annual trip with my wife; last year I traveled alone. It is good to have company again.

We arrive at the little village shortly before noon and park on the edge of the square near the church. I know exactly where the graves are located in the graveyard behind the church. Every time I come here, usually in the bright summer, the memory arises anew, the memory of their funeral in gray November, in a light rain, with crowds of people dressed in somber clothes, the smell of the wet earth, and the low murmur of many voices. I feel mixed emotions -- sadness, loss, but also tranquility, peace, serenity in the midst of natural beauty. For Eileen it will not be so wrenching -- this is not her family.

I carry a vase of flowers which I have brought in the car. We will place them on the grave, and after a few days, when they are withered, the sexton will remove them.

As we approach the graves I point them out to Eileen. "See, they're the white marble stones there, the ones that say 'James Potter' and 'Lily Potter'. "

Eileen stops in her tracks and stares at the stones, her mouth slightly agape, motionless, speechless. Then slowly she turns her head to look up at me, then back to the stones again.

I don't know what's going on. "Why? What's wrong?" I stammer.

"Lily Potter is your daughter?" Eileen asks haltingly. "James Potter is your son-in-law?"

"Yes," I answer, surprised and uncomprehending. "Did you know them?"

"Everybody knew of them," she whispers unbelievingly. "But I didn't know, never dreamed, that you were her father. Lord Voldemort -- he killed your daughter, didn't he?" She looks up at me with great round eyes beginning to fill with tears.

I nod. "Yes, that's what they said his name was." I'm still not sure exactly what this is all about.

"Lord Voldemort killed my son too," she exclaims in a torrent of grief. "He killed your girl and he killed my boy, my sweet boy! Oh, that horrible, horrible man!" She covers her face with her hands and sobs aloud.

I am dumbstruck. With one hand still clutching the vase of flowers, I wrap my arms around her and hold her close while she continues to hold her hands over her face and utter disconnected phrases -- "that horrible man", and "my sweet baby" -- between sobs.

Yes, I think to myself as I stare straight ahead, they will always be our babies.

After a few minutes Eileen begins to regain her composure and pull away from me, so I release my arms and she steps back and begins to fumble in her purse. I pull my clean folded white handkerchief from my pocket and hand it to her. She accepts it gratefully and dabs at the moisture on her face.

"Thank you," she whispers.

"Are you okay?" I ask with concern.

"As okay as I'll ever be, I guess," she answers shakily. "I didn't know."

"Let's put the flowers on the grave, and then I'll show you her photograph."

"Yes," she says. "I'd like to see it. I only knew of her by reputation."

I set the vase down in front of the tombstone and draw a photograph from my inside jacket pocket. It is the last picture I ever had of her, with James and little Harry. I hand it to her, expecting her to smile and say what a pretty family they were.

But again she just stares at it for a long minute and then says, "I have seen this photograph before." There is confusion in her expression.

"You have?" I echo. "It's just a family snapshot. Where have you seen it?"

"Not it," she answers, shaking her head slowly, "just part of it, just the half that shows your daughter, not the part with the man and the baby. This is one of the photographs that was in that box of memorabilia that the school gave back to me after my son died. One of those pictures of people I didn't recognize."

"Your son had a picture of my daughter in his box of keepsakes?" I am puzzled, mystified. "They were about the same age; they must have been in school together -- did your son go to Hogwart's? But that was years ago. What does it mean, after all these years..." My voice trails off.

Eileen hands the photograph back to me. "My Severus was never sentimental. He didn't keep souvenirs. Everything in that box must have been very precious to him, for him to keep them forever. For some reason, and I might never know why, your daughter was precious to my son."

It is almost more than I can take in. What were the odds that our paths would cross? In a cemetery, of all places?

"Then we are linked by bonds of affection," I say. "You to your son, your son to my daughter, and my daughter to me. You and I are at the ends of a chain. Shall we continue to stick together?"

"If we did that, then the chain would become a circle," she says.

"Yes," I agree, "a circle of affection I like that idea."

She gives me a beautiful smile. "I like it too."

She takes my hand, and I have a vision of a circle being closed, and the circle is a shining chain of gold.