“Not really. But they’re both Catholic.” She couldn’t bring herself to speak of them in the past tense. It hurt too much. He nodded. “We only go to church on Christmas.”
“You can decide what church you want. I’ve already written the obituary,” he said, sounding efficient. She didn’t know how he’d been notified, but someone had called him. His name must have appeared on her father’s papers too.
“Thank you,” she said softly, and he patted her hand and stood, as the doorman rang again, to tell her Sam was on his way up. He had come back quickly.
“I’ll call or text you with anything I know,” Ed said and hugged her again, and then she went to let Sam in. Ed smiled at him briefly and then left. Sam watched him go, and turned to her after Ed left.
“Just out of curiosity. Did he hit on you?” he said, and she looked shocked.
“Sam! Of course not. That’s disgusting. He’s older than my father. Why would you say something like that?”
“I don’t know. He just looks the type. He’s so smooth and so slick, and he’s very good-looking.” She had never noticed. He just seemed old to her. And she knew his children were older than she was. They were all married and had children.
“His kids are older than I am.”
“I bet his girlfriends aren’t. I’ve read about him on Page Six.”
“That’s just gossip. He’s married. And his wife is very good-looking.”
“I don’t know. I just get a funny feeling about him.”
“Jealous?” she teased him.
“Hardly. Just protective. I don’t want anyone to take advantage of you.” She was alone in the world now, and young and vulnerable, but he didn’t say it to her.
“He won’t do that. My father trusted him completely.” And she knew her father had been a great judge of character.
“He trusted him with money. With women I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“You’re a freak,” she said, and smiled for the first time since six o’clock that morning when the gendarmerie called from France.
Sam had brought some soup his mother had made for her. He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, so he could sleep in his clothes if he needed to. He was not going to leave her alone. He told his parents, and for once, they understood and were sympathetic, and offered to help however they could. But there was nothing they could do either.
She got a flood of emails and texts from friends that night and didn’t answer them, although she read most of them. Sam made her eat some of his mother’s soup, and Coco finally fell asleep at nine o’clock, lying next to him on her bed. He lay next to her and held her until he fell asleep too. The whole day had been a nightmare, but from this one, no one was going to wake up. It broke Sam’s heart knowing that his best friend was now alone and had no living relatives. It was what Coco had been thinking all day too. She was an orphan now.
Chapter 2
Tom’s and Bethanie’s bodies landed in New York at two A.M. on Thursday. The funeral home Ed had chosen picked them up at JFK airport, and had the visitation room set up by that evening. Coco didn’t want them to be cremated. Their bodies had been tortured enough. Ed found out there was a family plot that Tom had bought for his parents and Bethanie’s, and there was more than enough room to bury them there too.
A rosary was set for six P.M. on Friday, and there would be visitation all weekend, for people to come and pray or meditate, and sign the guestbook. The funeral was set for Monday at noon. Tom’s secretaries had set up a schedule to be there to receive guests and oversee the guestbook. They were expecting a huge crowd at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue, and Ed had selected the ushers from among their business associates, since there was no family. Coco had found a beautiful photograph of her parents on the beach in Southampton looking happy and relaxed, the way she wanted to remember them. She had them put it on the program for the mass. There was another photograph on the back of the program. It was of their wedding day in Las Vegas, and it made her laugh. Ed had called an opera singer he knew to sing the “Ave Maria.” They were having Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” for the recessional, when the caskets were carried out, to be driven to Long Island for burial. Sam had agreed to go with her, and Ed had said he would be there too. His wife was in Italy, and had sent her condolences. Coco knew that she and her parents hadn’t been close.
She and Sam went to the first day of visitation on Saturday before everyone else. The caskets were closed and Sam said the prayer for the dead in Hebrew next to each of them. He signed the guestbook and then they left and went back to the apartment.
Coco sat in the front pew in church, between Sam and Ed, feeling like she was having an out of body experience. Their housekeeper, Theresa, had found a black dress of her mother’s that fit her, and a black hat she’d never seen before. Coco couldn’t remember anything about the ceremony and afterward she stood shaking hands with people for what felt like hours and didn’t recognize half of them. Most of them were people her father had known in business. And then at last, they stood in the cemetery, while the caskets were lowered into the ground on ropes, and she sprinkled a handful of earth on each of them, and collapsed sobbing in Sam’s arms. And then it was over. Ed stood very near her, and patted her shoulder repeatedly. She felt as though her body belonged to someone else, and her mind was dead. The only part of her left alive was her heart and it was broken in a million pieces. There had been no preparation for this, no warning, no sign of ill health, or of a storm coming that would claim both of her parents and destroy her life.
Sam sat with her all that night. He never left her, and she stayed in bed for several days afterward. Sam stayed at the apartment with her, and Theresa prepared meals for them that Coco didn’t eat. She thought about going back to work, but knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t get her mind clear enough to concentrate on anything, or even think. She called her boss the week after the funeral, and said she just didn’t have it in her to come back to work. He understood and told her again how sorry he was, and to call him when she felt better, whenever that was. She was a bright girl, and he would have liked to have her on the team, and to hire her when she graduated. She promised to call, but didn’t know if she would. She thought it might always be a bad memory for her and a painful association that she had worked there when it happened. Sam had said in a shaking voice that if she had gone with them, she would be dead now. He couldn’t bear thinking about it, and was grateful she had stayed in New York. Her summer job had saved her life.
Ed came by to see her every day, in the afternoon, and Sam came at night after work, once he’d started working for his father. He spent the nights in the guest room after the first few days. She liked knowing he was there, even if they didn’t talk or she fell asleep, or they sat and stared at the TV. They tried going out to the Hamptons, but somehow it was worse there, and they came back the same day. She kept expecting to see her parents walk toward her on the beach, and felt suffocated when she realized they never would again. It was over. Life as she had known it was over, and changed forever. Trying to get used to it was agony. Trying to accept it was all she thought about now, and she couldn’t.