Stone Yard Devotional

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence, rape, child abuse, pregnancy loss or termination, child death, suicidal ideation, graphic violence, illness, death, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

The protagonist visits her parents’ graves on the way to the abbey. As she looks at their gravestones, she remembers their funerals and realizes how close she is to their remains. Remembering the feelings of collapse when she received the call that her mother’s gravestone was ready, she leans down to touch the grass.

The drive to the abbey takes six hours, and when she arrives, the protagonist finds it desolate and unwelcoming. She finds the office and meets Sister Simone, who introduces the protagonist to the housekeeper, Anita.

Anita shows the protagonist to her cabin. She relaxes, enjoying the silence, which is soon interrupted by a text from Andrew, her husband, letting her know that he has landed at Heathrow. She knows, and suspects he knows, that she will not be joining him. The protagonist looks over some booklets left in the cabin and learns that there are no social requirements for those staying at the abbey. She considers that someone could end their own life in this privacy and no one would know.