Katie, Jonas and Clarinda took seats near her, and within minutes Sean O’Hara and Vanessa arrived, and then Ted and Jaden. They sat in the row behind her.
A few minutes later the church began to fill in. She wondered how many people had been Cutter’s friends, and how many were there because they were curious. Cutter had been legend.
He had real friends there, as well. Kelsey smiled, touched as she saw Liam’s and David’s elderly aunts, Alice and Esther Beckett, come in and find seats in a pew in the back. She was saddened to see how they had aged, but then, they were actually great-aunts, and Esther had to be almost ninety, with Alice the baby of the two at eighty-eight. They both had beautiful heads of silver-blue hair, wore neat little boucle suits, hats, and carried hand-embroidered handkerchiefs.
Liam arrived with his cousin moments later, stopping to kiss his aunts before coming up to join her, and the service began. It was an Episcopalian mass, and many on the island participated. Then the eulogy was given, the reverend doing the speaking and doing it beautifully. He talked about a fine man who had suffered much, and had always been kind to his fellow beings and to lost and frightened critters, as well. He spoke about Cutter’s brilliance, and his talent, and his adventurous soul.
Kelsey was invited up. For a moment, she stood at the lectern and looked out. She did feel a hot flash of tears at her eyes. So many people were there. She saw Joe Richter out in the crowd. She saw strangers. She saw the medical examiner, Franklin Valaski, looking as if he’d taken a two-minute shower, crawling into a back pew. It seemed that every old conch in Key West had turned out.
She said goodbye to her grandfather, to the world’s finest storyteller and the man who had taught her to draw and had given her the world. The service ended, and it was time to move on to the cemetery.
She tried not to focus on her mother’s name, beautifully etched in brass on the stone wall of the small family mausoleum. The Key West cemetery was eclectic, with many graves above ground as they were in New Orleans, and for the same reason. All kids who grew up there knew that a vicious hurricane in the mid-eighteen hundreds had sent bodies floating down Duval from other sites. This ground had been chosen because it was in the center of the island at the time, and on high ground. There were little mausoleums here and there, in-ground interments and even a grave that looked as if it were a small brick smokehouse. There were sections and monuments. The cemetery was in the true spirit of Key West, with one grave that made the profound statement, “I told you I was sick.”
Kelsey stood outside the family mausoleum she hadn’t seen since her mother’s funeral.
It was while they were there, with Liam not far from her, that she felt a strange touch.
It was a comforting touch, as if someone had reached out to stroke her cheek gently. She heard a voice speak softly.
“He rests in peace. He was a good man, and he has now entered into the final great adventure, where he will do well.”
She turned around, looking for the speaker who had given her the kind words. Liam was to her left, having just spoken softly to Katie. Sean O’Hara, Katie and Vanessa were just behind her, a respectful step back.
Katie, however, was frowning.
At someone who wasn’t there.
She found herself closing her eyes and trying to feel the air around her. Silly. There was nothing there, and she had imagined the words, or a friend had come close….
The service finished. She went to throw a rose on the grave, and others followed suit. Cutter Merlin’s coffin was carried into the mausoleum by representatives from the funeral home, Liam, David, Ted and Jonas.
The grave would be sealed later. People she knew, and people she didn’t know, came by to squeeze her hand and remark that Cutter had been an extraordinary human being. Jamie O’Hara was there, assuring his nephew and niece to take their time; he had others working, as they’d arranged for a good Irish sendoff for Cutter at O’Hara’s, a celebration of the life he had lived.
Alice and Esther Beckett came to her, supported by David and Liam.
“Oh, child! It was a wonderful service,” Alice said.
“Nonsense, my dear,” Esther told her. “Cutter was a blessed man, living all those years, and really living while he could. Too many old geezers—ah, well, hmm, like Alice and myself!—have given up on adventure. You be proud of Cutter, and all that he did!”
“I am very proud,” Kelsey assured them.
“And you come see us, dear, promise?” Esther asked.
Alice took her hands. “Oh, Kelsey, dear! You are just beautiful, even more beautiful than your sainted mother, may she rest in peace. Thank God you’ve come home to us. Liam, didn’t I tell you once? I knew that Kelsey would come home to us. Remember, dear, we must never live for the past. Only for the present, and a bit for the future.”
Esther grinned wickedly. “Right now, I’m believing in the present. At my age, dear, one doesn’t count on a future.”