her eyes while everything swirled around her and she waited to hear what the captain would say.
“They did not survive,” he said somberly. Her eyes flew open and she looked at Sam in disbelief.
“Both of them?”
“Yes, madame. Both Monsieur and Madame Martin were killed. There will be formalities. If you will contact the American embassy in Paris, they will assist you. We are very, very sorry for this terrible act. It is a great tragedy. So many victims. Our sincere sympathy,” he said. “The people of France cry with you.” She nodded and couldn’t speak for a moment, as he gave her a number to call, to make arrangements for the victims. The captain sounded choked himself. He had been working all through the night, and now had the grim task of notifying relatives and loved ones. Many of the victims couldn’t be identified. There were human fragments all over the Croisette.
She ended the call and stared at Sam, unable to believe what the captain had told her. From the look on her face, Sam didn’t dare ask her what had happened. He could see it. He put his arms around her, and she shuddered against his chest, with deep wracking sobs. This couldn’t have happened, but it had. She tried to catch her breath to tell him.
“Both of them,” she said with gulping sobs. He had already guessed that when she asked the captain, and then had no further questions. “What do I do now? How do I live without them?” Sam didn’t know what to do for her, other than hold her.
“Do you have to go and get them?” he asked gently, and she looked totally lost. Her green eyes were emerald pools of pain.
“I don’t know. He said the embassy would help me.” Sam wondered if his father would lend him the money to go with her if she had to go to France. He couldn’t let her face it alone. They walked into the kitchen, and he handed her a glass of water, which seemed like such a useless gesture, but he didn’t know what else to do. He felt helpless and heartbroken for her. Her parents were such great people. She took a sip and set it down. She couldn’t focus on anything except what she had just heard. Both her parents had been killed. It was what she had been so desperately afraid of all night.
She sent an email to her boss at Time, explaining what had happened and that she could not come in and would contact them when she knew more.
She and Sam spent the next two hours sitting at the kitchen table, talking, and then Sam called the embassy in Paris for her, and they gave him a number to call in Cannes. It was an emergency number that had been set up for the families of the victims, for information, and directions about where the bodies were being taken. Not all of them had been removed yet. He handed Coco the phone when he got through. The woman who answered consulted a list and told Coco that her parents were at a military base, and the American embassy in Paris would be able to give her the correct forms for their release, in order to transport them to the United States. It sounded like there was going to be considerable red tape, but they were well organized. They had had too much practice with events like this in recent years.
Coco called the American embassy in Paris again after that. They extended their condolences immediately, and said they would email the forms she would have to fill out and have notarized to give her clearance to transport her parents back to the States. They warned her that it could take several days or even a week. They said they would call the victims’ survivor number and see if they could expedite it. She felt lost again as she listened. It was a maze of words and formalities that meant nothing now without her parents. She couldn’t imagine anything that would matter to her again, or her life without them.
Sam called the hotel for her, and spoke to the manager to explain what had happened, and asked them to safeguard the Martins’ belongings until someone could claim them.
“Of course. Please extend our deepest sympathy to Miss Martin and the family,” the manager said. But there was no family now. Only Coco.
Sam then called his father from the den, and explained