Under his name, carved into the stone, were the words, “Birdie and Lolo.” I imagined future visitors would wonder what the names meant, but I knew they were Doug and Kris’s nicknames for each other, their terms of endearment. How proud my friend would be to witness what his wife Birdie had achieved. I took the handful of califate berries I had carried down the hill and sprinkled them over his grave. “He who eats the califate,” I said, repeating a local saying, “returns to Patagonia.” I left the grave and walked back toward the gate of the small fence framing the cemetery. There, carved into a
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