A month passed...
Taking the hand offered her, Kate allowed Harry, the driver, to help her from the car.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, then when he closed the door, she saw her image again and looked around in the case an older-looking woman was standing behind her.
The black dress, the grey wig, the old-fashioned round glasses, slightly darkened; not to speak of the black hat that looked like it came from a costume collection in a museum, Kate looked every bit a matriarch of the church. Taking Doctor Foreman's arm, she limped along beside him, using a walking stick in her other hand. Yes, a walking stick, and she needed it too. The time it had taken her to be able to walk upright using the walking stick was annoying to her. At last, today, she was allowed up and out of the confinement she had been in for the past month.
This funeral, today, it was HER funeral! Ouch.
The minister at the graveside urged the few dozen people to move closer. He read scriptures...
Drawing a deep breath, she longed for this part to be over. It'd been bad enough, at her home-town church, she could barely stop herself from screaming out the truth —"Hey it's me, here! I'm not dead! I'm alive!"
But, Amma and Richard, her doctors, all, had threatened she not be permitted to come today if she had any thought of not playing this part. She had thought long about that — not coming today. Half of her didn't want to be here, especially now, when they were going to bury her and it was a great, big lie.
Kate still felt resentment to Richard, and especially so to her father who was yet to attend. She wondered now if he was even going to come. The only one she felt sure she could depend on was Amma. Even when she had learned that Amma was, in reality, Richard's grandmother, she believed in her.
Amma had known her since she... well, forever, Kate mused. Richard had been sitting beside Amma in church back when he saw Kate for the first time, and she had seen him, but for some reason, she'd got caught up with her girl friends and Richard had left with his grandmother before they could talk. Kate had been really upset that she hadn't had time with Amma who often took her out for lunch after the service. Richard and Kate's clandestine friendship had begun after that day.
That was all a lie too, Kate told herself. Ten years being a pen-pal to him and it was all for nothing.
Amma moved to the other side of her now, pushing an arm under hers, holding her hand from beneath. The month hadn't been long enough for Kate to recover. For the final stage of Kate's rehabilitation, some rebuilding of her system and healing needing to take place. There was so much more life ahead for Kate that she had agreed with Amma that it would be best to put the former part of her life way behind her.
The minister spoke of Kate as being 'a troubled soul now at peace with her Lord'.
A troubled soul. One thing for sure, she did not want to be that troubled soul any longer... but where and how, would she find peace here on this earth? Would she have to wait for heaven for such peace?
She watched the coffin lowering into the ground and couldn't bring herself to join in the singing of the hymn, 'In the Sweet By and By'.
She tried to free her hands, her arms, but found them held firm. Bowing her head, it was all she could do to stop herself weeping. She shouldn't have come.
"You can begin again," Amma said, her voice a whisper, but oh so kind. "Be glad that you're not in that box."
Part of Kate felt she should be there, her soul would be in the arms of the angels, flying away. What a beautiful song, it would be playing soon, she'd asked them to play it here. The haunting music had always been of comfort to her.
Richard had brought a small round wireless speaker device for it to sound out from.
The minister spoke his closing words, "In the arms of the angels, may you find some comfort here."
And the song began...
As the words she had loved were sung, she found much deep meaning in them, such as she'd not discerned before. She could imagine herself to be floating above the grave, listening.
It was impossible for her not to weep. Her tears were not just for this location here, the grave, or what had happened to her. They were for everything in her life, all the hurts, all the rejection, all the pain...
If Amma and the doctor hadn't been holding her so firmly, she would've sunk to her knees and fallen to the ground. On and on the music played...
When it ended, she couldn't move.
"You can start anew," Amma's voice came to her. "As of now, you're free from your enemies. Yes, they will still be out there, but they will no longer keep pursuing Kate. In accepting your new life, you will have many supporters and helpers whom you're yet to meet."
Kate walked with Amma and the doctor, back towards the place the car was parked. She stopped walking, pulling back, saying, "Let me look, one more time." They turned around, linked as a trio.
Her father knelt on both knees, close to the grave, his head in his hands.
Kate had been told that one day, perhaps, they might be able to tell him that she was alive, but not right now when he was fraternizing with enemies who wanted the technology he had helped create, most of which he'd sold to them for millions of dollars. That this technology was somewhat distinct to Kate had been proven because even her father had been unable to duplicate his creation of it. Hence the reason why it had been of the greatest urgency to capture Kate, dead or alive.
Walking on and finding herself seated in the car, she asked them to wait, not to drive off yet.
Her eyes stayed her father. He looked so alone. She wanted to hug him, but he had never liked hugging. She had never been hugged by him and he'd pushed her away from him whenever she got close.
Standing, he turned to leave. At the same time, three men in black suits approached the grave from the other side. Kate's father continued to walk away, moving to where his car was parked.
"Do we have binoculars?" Kate asked, taking off the glasses she wore.
With her long-sightedness she could see the three men clearly. They stood on the opposite side of the grave. Taking the binoculars offered by Harry, she scanned the faces of the men before they moved around the open grave, circling it, discussing it.
When they were back with their faces to her, Kate said, "I remember one of them, the other two are strangers to me. But Jerry, the short one; he's the one who gave me the injection, he's the one who put me in that bunker, he likely bound me; the one I was in when Richard rescued me... what a creep! I thought it back then when I'd not been conscious for long. I couldn't remember anything for so long, but Jerry was there after I woke up... he's the same man whose there now. He must be with my worst of enemies."
"We have cameras on this, don't we, Bruce?" Amma asked, adding, "There'll be sound-recorders so their discussion there now is retrievable?"
"Yes, there's a comprehensive set-up around the area. If anyone tries to raid the grave, we'll capture them on camera. We'll have monitors watching all the time. You're still going to allow them to infiltrate it?"
"Yes," Amma said. "If that Jerry, the one Kate called a creep, if he returns to collect DNA, then he will find Kate's DNA in that box but it will be most difficult to get it out of the coffin and steal it. They likely will take the whole coffin away."
Kate smiled at the thought of the tables being turned on them. She said, "But he wanted me dead anyway. Why would he want my DNA?"
"To close the book on you, so to speak, to check up that we haven't been able to trick them, Miss Kate," the doctor said, "they'll want proof that the ashes inside the coffin are really yours, that your remains are there."
"How did you get it there, that box?" She had to ask.
Hair has DNA, you must know that and you complained that your hair had been cut too short which at first was because it was bloody. Your body had been mixed up in some of the ship's wreckage, nets and ropes. Your clothes which also contained blood were combined with your hair and carefully turned to ash. They won't be able to deny that the ashes contain your DNA.
"Well, good for that creep," Kate concluded. Drawing a deep breath, she said, "I hope we're going to go and celebrate my rebirth. My new life starts tomorrow..."
(For those who'd like to hear it, this next link is for a youtube version of 'The Sweet By and By')