Forever, Danielle thought as she looked into the hole her children and grandchildren had dug, wasn't long enough.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see one of her daughters--Katy, from the first litter. "You need some time alone, Ma?"
"Yes, dear, thank you."
The crowd of foxpeople withdrew, and Danielle looked into her husband's grave. She thought of all the things buried with him, the memories of earth, fading over the years but always forming a unique bond between the two of them. Another bond, the growing awareness they had shared that the first generation born on this planet would marry as brothers and sisters, and that their innocent children must never, ever know how much this disturbed their parents. The joy they had shared as each grandchild emerged whole and strong, and the second generation married cousins, shunning their siblings. The care he had taken of her in her pregnancies and deliveries--fortunately foxpeople did not have the painful and prolonged labors of humans--and that she had given to him in his last, brief, illness.
Danielle pulled a bone knife from her rawhide belt and began to cut away at a lock of hair, a lock in which was knotted her most precious possession, her mother's wedding ring. She had given up trying to wear it on her nonhuman fingers a long time ago. The lock came free, and she dropped it and the ring in her husband's grave. The last reminder of earth.
Her face matted with tears, Danielle turned away from the grave, to her family, her tribe, her home.