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and insinuations, or with the name that I wanted desperately to mean nothing to me.
     But I felt weak and afraid as I followed the bier over that stony road. I would have given the world to have my mother beside
     me again—or even just her specter, if that was all to be allowed me.
Oh, Mama,
I thought.
Why have you left me?
    It seemed forever before we came to the grave site. The hole was deep and wet from the storm, with mud pooling at the bottom,
     and the idea that we were putting my mother into it was horrible. I would have looked away except for the fact that my father
     came over beside Jude and me at that moment. He put his hand on my shoulder.
    “Come along,” he said quietly, leading us to the very edge of the grave. “Gaze down and mark it well. ’Tis what waits for
     all of us. Remember how it feels to stand here now and face mortality. Never forget how your mother died. You should pray
     for God’s blessing, that you may have as joyful a death as she.”
    Jude’s little fingers tightened on mine.
    Master Parris came forward and rested his hand on the pall over Mama’s coffin. His dark hair fell forward, and the wind blew
     it back again from his sharp cheekbones, his angular face. “My beloved flock,” he began. “In life, Judith Fowler was holy
     and prudent, a woman of sincerity and humility, a woman of great patience and public spiritedness. Who among us ever suffered
     an unkind word from her? Who among us has ever gone to her for help and found her lacking? Judith was truly a visible saint,
     and a faithful one. She revealed to me often how uncertain she was of her salvation—would that the rest of us be so uncertain
     and yet practice such faith and charity! As Jesus Christ to our Lord…”
    He went on, but I was caught by the sight of my aunt on the other side of the open grave, standing behind the pastor. She
     was not listening to him. She was looking at my mother’s coffin, mouthing words—a prayer, but one I did not recognize—and
     her hands were held tight, palm to palm before her chest. I caught sight of Mary Walcott. She and Elizabeth were staring at
     my aunt, whispering to each other, and I felt my skin grow hot and had to look away. All I could think was
an actress.
It could not be. Of course it could not be. My good mother would never have brought Susannah here had it been true. To be
     an actress…’twas such a sinful thing. She knew my father would never accept it.
    Perhaps my secret was not the only one Mama had kept.
The thought shook me.
    Master Parris finished, and the underbearers moved forward to pull away the pall and tilt my mother’s coffin into the grave.
     I did not think to step back until it nearly grazed my toes. They pushed the casket in, and it landed with a creak of wood
     and a muffled splash. Droplets of mud covered the fine white pine, and the coffin settled in crookedly, but no one seemed
     to care about that. They were spading the dirt over, so quickly that before I knew it they were done, and my father was standing
     before me, sweating in the cold wind. He took off his hat and swiped his arm across his forehead. His curly hair was pressed
     flat and straight to his head.
    “’Tis time to go back,” he said to Jude and me. “The two of you go on, help your aunt and the other women prepare for the
     crowd.”
    I did not move. I felt frozen there.
    My father frowned at me. “What is it, Charity?”
    I hardly knew what to say. My thoughts were torturous, and I had nowhere else to turn. “Do you think there was sin in her?”
     I whispered.
    My father stared at me. I saw his concern for me, and I took a desperate hope from it. I wanted his reassurance so badly I
     was half afraid to say the words. “If she kept…secrets…that is not much a sin, is it? Is it?”
    His expression changed; I could not read it. He did not take his gaze from me when he said, “If ’twas wickedness she hid,
     then indeed she sinned. God shuns any weakness—’tis no