In act ii, the stage manager takes us to the time when he says george and emily's relationship started. what do we learn on emily's twelfth birthday that shows their relationship began well before the drugstore scene?

The answer would be the stage manager introduces us to the cemetery, pointing out the old graves, from the revolution and the civil war, and the new graves of the people we know. he suggests that the grief with which we bury our dead fades, but still there is something eternal in us having to do with human life.