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She disappears. She doesn’t tell us where she’s going, and she doesn’t let the kids go with her. I spend every minute waiting for her to come back, forcing myself not to go out in search of her. She is not mine. Still, I wait for her.

I thought she would ask me about the blood in the hut, but she didn’t. It’s disorienting. All I have is Raff’s explanation for their trip south, how she presented as worried about the concrete, but he suspects she was using it as an excuse to get back to the hut, where she used her chemicals to prove blood was spilled. He swears to me they spoke no more about it, that he told her nothing except to talk to me.

She did not talk to me.

She must suspect violence. She must think I’m lying to her.

Why did she come here.

I lie awake, obsessing over these questions. Thinking of her. I have an urgent need to fix this, but I don’t know how. I feel lost at the thought that she will not come back to us. To me.

When Rowan returns, I am expecting a confrontation. But instead she gathers more supplies in her pack and sets out again without a word. This time I follow. Because strapped to her back is a shovel. I think of what’s buried in this island and know I can’t let her dig it up.

I lose her for a while; I’ve been leaving a huge gap between us. I think she has walked all the way down to the southern beach and the seed vault, and my heart lurches, but I can’t find her at either place. I retrace my steps and by following the shoreline back around I eventually see her in the distance. How did she know to come here? Did one of my children tell her? Or has she been out searching, roaming. Hunting.

She is crouched on a sloping hill, overlooking the ocean. The view is spectacular, it’s why we chose this spot. The shovel is moving. She’s already dug out the raised mound that sits beneath the rudimentary, nameless headstone.

My dread explodes into horror and I run to her. “Don’t,” I say. But when she looks up at me I see a different woman, a creature of certainty, I see that she will never stop digging, not until she’s found him.

With a shaking hand I reach for the shovel. I say, even though it’s the last thing I want to do, “Let me.” Because I can see the pain in her exhausted, hollow face, I have seen the damage done to her body, and this hole will take many hours, it is deceptively difficult to dig a grave, I know it is because I dug this one. I dug it with my son, who wept as he shoveled earth long into the night.

I do the same now. I have spent countless hours digging holes in this hillside. I did not think I’d be spending more.

What will you tell her? my wife asks. I didn’t hear her come but she’s here now. I wish she wasn’t. I don’t speak to her, I dig.

When we reach him, I lower the shovel and we both slide into the hole. Our hands gently pull the last dirt away from him. There’s no coffin; he is simply wrapped in a sheet. I have been very careful with my shovel.

“This will be bad,” I tell her. “It’s been a few weeks.”

She nods. I can see the muscles of her jaw clench. She is readying herself. Folds back the covering from his face, and looks.

I didn’t know if we would be able to tell, but we can.

Rowan starts crying. She covers her face and weeps, and then she reaches for his face, which still looks like his face, and she smooths her fingers tenderly over his cheeks, brushing the hair back off his forehead, and through her tears she asks, “Who is he?”