William Henry Devereaux Jr. buries Occam

Occam’s burial is both a physical act of mourning and a scene in which William Henry Devereaux, Jr. confronts how closely he has come to resemble his father, William Henry Devereaux, Sr. As he digs, the present burial echoes his father’s burial of the family’s first dog forty years earlier; the conversation between father and son that gives the scene its emotional force, however, takes place in William’s imagination.

The Burial

The scene follows William’s discharge from the hospital and his return home with Lily and Angelo. After they persuade Finny that no one blames him for Occam’s death, William promises to read Finny’s dissertation when it is finished. He then gathers Occam in a sheet, carries the body around the back of the house to the edge of the woods, and digs a grave. The work takes about an hour and costs him a pair of loafers and his favorite chinos. William is thigh-deep in the hole when he looks up and sees his father leaning heavily on the back-deck railing.

A Scene for Two Devereauxs

Lily, Angelo, and William’s mother are also present, but William reflects that they might as well not be: the vignette seems arranged for the benefit of the two William Henry Devereauxs. From roughly fifty yards away, his aging father cannot see him clearly. William imagines that the sight of him in the grave recalls the man who buried his first dog decades earlier. The physical parallel is sharpened by William’s own admission that he has grown to resemble his father: his hands, once soft from a professor’s life, are now blistered from digging, as his father’s hands had been.

The Imagined Exchange

William imagines his father reading the scene as a vindication, privately voicing approval of his son and, as William sees it, overstating his own importance in what has happened. William answers in thought that he did not need to borrow a shovel. The imagined reply turns the practical detail of the burial into a wry assertion of independence, even as the act itself exposes the likeness between father and son. The exchange is not spoken aloud; it is William’s way of staging a meeting that the distance across the sloping lawn, and the distance between them, otherwise prevents.