Soul Inheritance by Honey A. Hutson Page B

entered and settled in the front row. The service was short, as he had requested many times over the years.
    “ Don’t waste time mourning me. Get on with living,” he would say. She took the words to heart as she thought of the suitcases in the back of the Jeep.
    “ Would you approve?” she wondered to herself. With an inward smile she decided he probably would not.
    “ Katherine, we’re all so sorry.” His business manager sat down beside her, hugged her lightly. “We’re so shocked, he was always so healthy.”
    “ Well, it was sudden.” She fought hard to control a weakening voice. They sat in silence while the casket was rolled forward and the procession to the parking lot began. The manager, Craig, followed close by, his face solemn and gray. Once they were outside she watched numbly as the casket was loaded into the hearse.
    “ So sudden,” she was only mumbling to herself, but Craig stepped forward and offered an arm.
    “ Where’s the limousine?”
    “ There isn’t one. I drove myself.”
    “ Oh, well, let me help you to the car.”
    She didn’t take his arm, but turned to him instead. He seemed to be trying hard to be of some help, but Katherine was sure he was also worried, about those who depended on the business for their livelihoods. Until that moment she hadn’t considered any of the business decisions.
    “ Craig, can you do me a favor?”
    “ Sure Katherine, anything.”
    “ I have to go away on family business for a little while. Can you keep the business moving just the way it is while I’m gone?”
    “ Of course. But I don’t have the authority to do some things.”
    “ That’s okay. We’ll fix that before I leave. After the funeral meet me at the coffee shop across the street from George Marino’s office.” She turned and went to the Jeep.
    The procession wound its way over crowded streets. People bustled by and continued about their normal, everyday routines. She wished she could be among them, far away from the pain and the sudden, horrifying changes that had taken place, unaware  of the loved ones lost to people like her everyday. Never thinking about the actual event of death. There one day, gone the next. What of her own inevitable end? Would it be swift and sure? Or drawn out? What if? No, she couldn’t think that way. It wasn’t going to win.
    She looked out the front window, at the back of the hearse. She had to know what she was fighting to succeed. What was hiding in the past, what was stalking her now, trying to make its way into the present?
    The funeral procession finally reached the cemetery. It made its way past rows of grave stones. Passed above ground crypts that were showing hairline cracks like old age wrinkles. The cemetery was grand, well kept and very old. Black pavement wound its way like ribbon between the neat green lawns that rolled off to either side. The procession stopped across from a mortuary decked out in pillars and marble with winged angles resting atop shelves beneath an A frame roofline. They seemed to casually be watching. The casket was removed and bore to the graveside where the proceedings continued to be brief.
    Katherine stood looking down at the casket. One small handful of dirt was scattered over the single white lily she had laid atop it. It moved slowly down lowering her father into his crypt. The few grave side mourners there were had left and now only the gravediggers remained. She turned and walked slowly back to the car. She looked more closely at the grand old mausoleum. Anything to take her mind off of the goodbyes already said. Drying her eyes she noticed how beautiful the marble work was leading into the majestic hall of the dead. It was aged, the stone gray and the crevices green.
    Katherine studied the angels, as she stood there leaning on the Jeep. Their skin was smooth, their cherub faces round and childlike with mops of curly cascading hair carefully carved from the stone. Wings adorned them, and swaths of cloth