“this morning your mom and i are going to the tractor show,” my dad says, “and if we get back in time this afternoon, we’ll go out to see the rock.”

all week there has been talk of going to see the rock.  “but i’ve already seen the rock,” my grandmother protests from her permanent place in the armchair.  “pretty soon i’ll be seeing it again.  why should i have to go see it now?”

we tell her we like having her around, that it’s nice outside, that it will be good to get her out of the house.  she knows that all these things are true, but she doesn’t budge.  she does not want to see the rock.

my mother and sister decide they don’t want to see it, either, and i don’t understand why they aren’t as curious as i am.  in the end it’s just my father, my grandfather, and me, driving across railroad tracks and past flooded farms, where trucks and tractors have been pulled up next to the houses so they won’t rust or be submerged.  i sit in the backseat, watching small birds wade through the shallow water, pecking at things under the surface.

the cemetery is just across the road from the new covered bridge.  i remember the new covered bridge from when we were here several years ago; the wood has weathered a little and i’m less sullen and belligerent, but otherwise it’s the same.  we drive down a small gravel road into the cemetery.

the rock looks like all the other rocks.  it’s two feet tall by three feet wide, grey, engraved with hearts and flowers and names and dates.  but it’s my grandparents’ names and dates that are on this one, with the date of their marriage on a heart in between, and my grandfather’s WIA underneath his name.

“i bought six plots,” my grandfather says, and begins to pace their outlines with his feet.  “ours are here in front and then there are four to the left.”

“which side of mom do you want to be on?” my dad asks.

“oh, i don’t know.  i guess i’ll go underneath my name.”

“is that what side of the bed you sleep on?” i ask my grandfather.  he smiles.

the three of us stand there for a minute, looking at the roses carved on the outer edge, and then we go around to the back.  my dad and his two sisters are on the other side, with their dates of birth engraved next to their names.  “karen said it’s good for genealogy to put your children’s names on the back,” my grandfather says.

it’s then that i think about the six plots.  there’s one each for my grandparents and my two aunts, and the remaining two are for my parents.  what, i wonder, will happen if my mom’s family has plots for my parents, too?  they would have to break the bad news to both sides of the family–that they want to be cremated.  briefly, though, i think about corpses sawed in half, each half buried in a different family plot in a different state.  the corpse would have to be cut lengthwise, i suppose, because if not, the families might fight over which side got to keep the head and which side got stuck with the feet.

i follow my dad back around to the front of the rock.  he takes out his camera, holding it up to take a picture.  my grandfather starts to move out of his way.  “no, no, stay there,” my father says, and snaps a few photos of my grandfather standing next to his own headstone.  my grandfather smiles a bit and squints at the cold sun, his jacket billowing in the wind.  he looks tired.

before going back to the car, we walk through the cemetery, looking at the other headstones.  on some of them, the names have weathered away.