CHAPTER 44HOME
Someone at the undertaker’s had stolen the rough diamond ring that I had given to Sam when we first met. The owner denied it, of course, and threatened to call the police and have me arrested. I didn’t want that kind of palaver, so I dropped the matter and arranged to have her body shipped to Seattle. I stayed with her all the way back to Seattle and took the unpleasant but necessary steps of arranging her funeral and having her placed in the family’s cemetery plot. Next to her grandparents.
There were more people at the gathering than I had expected. Many of her college friends came, a number of people she knew in high school and some from the Peace Corps. Most of her aunts and uncles were there, all with fond stories of her childhood. She had cousins too, more than I kne
