Free Finding Home by Marie Ferrarella Page B

someday about her? Oh, God, she hoped not. She hoped they would miss her because they had been in such close contact all the time and now she wouldn’t be part of their lives anymore.
    And Brad, how would he feel if he were standing here and those were her ashes in the urn? Knowing Brad, he’d be applauding her for being so efficient, for not taking up space in the ground, or requiring him to shell out a great deal of money on a casket.
    Last night, when she’d called him to let him know that she’d landed safely, she’d gotten his voice mail on his cell. She’d fallen asleep, waiting for him to call back. He probably decided that two Hawaii-Southern California calls were too costly. Why waste money when he would be talking to her soon enough as it was?
    She shook the thought off.
    All around her, Stacey heard gentle sobbing. She lookedaround again. The people attending Titus’s service were almost all female. From what she had picked up last night at dinner and again this morning, they were the former and not-so-former lovers of her uncle.
    Except for the man in the business suit, at the back of the gathering, Ian and herself, Stacey doubted that anyone in attendance was over forty. Or perhaps thirty. Uncle Titus liked them young, willing and pretty. Their spirit, he liked to say, matched his own. He never thought of himself as old, even when he turned ninety. Like George Burns, he had espoused the philosophy that everyone had to grow older but they didn’t have to grow old. He lived by that philosophy.
    Finally, the shaman, who looked to be about ninety himself, concluded the ceremony. The moment he did, Stacey found herself being shepherded along with everyone else into waiting vehicles. Once inside, they were driven en masse to the only cliff the island possessed.
    There, they disembarked and gathered around the shaman as the ancient man concluded his part of the ritual, more chanting.
    The winds had picked up and, along with them, the rain. The shaman appeared to be oblivious to both as they lashed along his face and body, soaking him. What he was about transcended such earthly things as wet clothing.
    Stacey was grateful that Ian held the big umbrella for both of them. She had visions of taking off like Mary Poppins had she been given her own large umbrella.
    The chanting ceased.
    Stacey held her breath, watching.
    With remarkably strong-looking hands, the shaman took the sky-blue urn from Ian. Removing the lid, the shaman said a few more words, then tilted the urn so that its contents could be swept over the cliff, down to the sea below or wherever it was that the winds would take the ashes, sowing Titus’s essence now that he was no longer able to sow his seed.
    Titus, as far as Stacey knew, had produced no children, not even one. Titus was sterile, her mother had once told her in whispered tones. It was a direct result of being exposed to some chemical at the plant he’d worked in as a teen. The same incident that was to render him heirless had also set the course of his life. It caused him to become a nonconformist, ever thumbing his nose at the establishment, except when it came to making money.
    The winds shifted just as the shaman finished shaking out the contents of the urn. Stacey suddenly felt something in her eye.
    The mourners began to retreat from the cliff, moving quickly to the shelter of the waiting vehicles.
    Ian was about to take her elbow, then noted the way she was blinking her eye. “Anything wrong?”
    Because she hated a fuss, Stacey was about to say no. But to do so was dumb. There was something obviously wrong. Whatever she’d gotten in her eye was stinging now. Her eye was tearing up.
    â€œI’m not sure, but I think I just got some of Uncle Titus in my eye.”
    She glanced with her good eye to see the lawyer’s reaction. It was the first time she saw the sober man smile.
    â€œTug on your eyelid,” he advised, ushering her down