At the base of the rundown wooden water tower lay two headstones. The family who bought the house, which the water tower stood behind, debated whether the graves belonged to children or family pets. One marble slab, barely peering above the weeds, read Kiki. The other, deeper in the thicket of clover, read Jerry. Both of which could have been perfectly good cat names.

"But they're also distinctly human," the mother said.

"If they were human, they wouldn't write a nickname on their burial marker," the husband said.

"Maybe it's an issue of space. They couldn't fit Kathleen on it, so they abbreviated," the daughter said.

"Who has the money to buy granite headstones for pets?" the son asked.

"I rest my case," the mother said.


*


The family grilled on the patio that lay beneath the shadow of the water tower. Whenever the wind rose, shingles and slats of wood rained down from the derelict structure, rusting nails falling like sleet. There was an orange poster tacked to one of its legs, a harsh X denoting condemnation.

"Can we take it down?" the wife asked.

"Do you have an extra ten grand lying around?" the husband replied.

"It can't cost that much."

"Do you know how much it costs to cut down a decent-sized tree?"

"No."

"A thousand bucks."

"That's outrageous."

"Now think of this as twenty decent-sized trees."

"You could always do it yourself," the wife suggested, flipping burgers.

"That will go well," the husband replied, dipping back into the house to retrieve the ketchup. The husband was in banking. Not the type of banker who attended crossfit classes. No. The kind that knew what every numbered combo on the Chinese restaurant's lunch menu represented.

"Come on, think of it as a father-son project," the son said.

The entire family clustered around the glass tabletop, the surface speckled with yellow grains of pollen.

"It will literally fall on you," the daughter said.

"What? Are you some kind of prophet?" the son asked.

"No. There's just few other options," she replied.

The family ate in silence. The proximity of the graves made the words seem all the more real.


*


It was a tropical storm that brought down the water tower. It crumbled, its stilt-legged frame crashing through the hedgerow surrounding the property. The splintered boards looked like skeletal ribs, the metal struts were rusted teeth scattered in the grass. One of the legs tore up the ground, unearthing the casket that lay beneath Kiki's headstone. The wooden box had decayed, gaps showing through the boards.

"Get a flashlight," the son said. "We can settle the debate right now."

"No. That's disrespectful," the mother said as she hung up the phone on the insurance company. Their homeowners policy wouldn't cover it. They were on their own with dragging the scrap away. "We raised you better than that."

"Don't pretend like you don't want to know," the daughter said.

"I'll put money on it," the father replied. "Pets, one hundred percent."

"You don't have money to bet," the mother said.

"Fine. How about loser does the bulk of the clean up," the husband said.

"So if the casket belongs to a person, you'll take care of it?" the mother asked.

"Yes. I'll get the chainsaw out and cut up the boards, burn the whole thing in a massive bonfire," the husband said.

"You know that's covered in creosote, right?" the son added.

"Our chemistry teacher says it's carcinogenic," the daughter added.

"Don't go there right now," the father said, sticking out his hand for them to shake. The wife nodded and shook.

They knelt by the side of the unburied casket, cellphone flashlights in hand, squinting into the box through the gaping holes. It was hard to make out the shape within, the shadows thick, the angles and articulation deteriorated with time. Out of frustration, the son tore away another board, widening the opening. There, before them, was a human foot, mostly bone, with ligaments withered and stained on the surface. Everyone stepped back, putting as much distance between themselves and the casket as possible.

"Home burials can't be legal," the father said, trying to adjust his reality.

"Who checks up on something like that? It's not like the town sends around the housing inspector to figure out if anyone's buried Uncle Jerry out back," the mother said.

"Are you really going to make me clean all this up, knowing what we do now?" the dad asked.

"No. We're selling the house. Let whoever moves in next figure it out," the wife said.

"We don't have the money for that, and the market's down," the father said.

"So we're just going to tear apart the tower, bury the coffin, and pretend none of this happened?" the wife asked.

"Sounds about right," the father said. "Bury and forget. It's what everyone's done for years."

The kids went to the shed to get shovels. The father went into the garage to gas up the chainsaw. The wife knelt by the foot of the grave and apologized for the bet she placed, for the running pet versus human jokes they'd made. She knew how family curses started. After a quick prayer, she joined her husband, searching for the kerosene that would start the bonfire, to help the whole pile go up quick.