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