Conversations with Friends

Mabel Isabel Murray died on December 8, 1898, aged five years, six months, and one day. Her life is commemorated with the smallest, most unassuming tombstone in the Brainard Cemetery, the second-smallest cemetery within the Portland, Oregon Metro area. The puzzle triggered by Mabel Isabel's memorial starts conversations among two couples — chats that broaden into questions of life, art, and relationships. This story starts with a graveyard filled with crows and ends there as well. Sandwiched between are friends and artists, city parks, and carved crows. And the cemetery takes on its own character, beloved by all.