Chapter 37
On Wednesday morning, the Chapel by the Sea was full to overflowing. Traci made a conscious decision to arrive late, slipping into the last available seat in the last row of pews in the tiny nondenominational church.
The woman seated on the aisle looked up and glared at Traci, resolutely refusing to slide over, so Traci stepped over her and her husband and son and managed to squeeze into the middle seat.
She knew the family, of course. Jolene and Pete Woods were Ric Eddings’s neighbors. Their son Pace had been in Parrish’s class in elementary school, until Ric sent his daughter to boarding school in Virginia.
Traci sat erect in her seat, eyes straight ahead, clenching and unclenching the wad of tissues in her hand.
She wasn’t surprised that the Woods family had literally given her the cold shoulder, and hadn’t been surprised when she’d learned that morning, strictly by accident, that Parrish’s funeral was being held later that day.
Charlie had arrived in her office that morning, holding the thick, buff-colored invitation in his hand. “Did you get one of these?”
Traci took the card in her own hand and read: Celebration of Life: Parrish Helen Eddings, beloved daughter of Frederic Eddings and Heather Eddings Goldstein. Wed., June 14, 5 p.m., Chapel by the Sea.
She ran a thumbnail over the engraved words. “This is the first I’m hearing about it. As you know, Ric isn’t speaking to me.”
“Oh. Sorry. I just assumed…”
“What? That Ric would do the decent thing? I’m afraid you overestimate him.” She patted the older man’s arm. “It’s all right. But thanks for letting me know in time. I’ll clear my afternoon calendar.”
He looked startled. “You’re going anyway?”
“Yes,” Traci said firmly. “Don’t worry. I won’t make a fuss or a scene. Today isn’t about Ric or me. It’s about honoring Parrish. I won’t let her father’s petty grievances keep me from that.”
She held up the invitation. “May I keep this, please? I think Parrish’s dormmates would want to honor her memory too.”
Charlie raised an eyebrow. “Is that really wise? I mean, I’ve talked to Ric, and he seems to think… well, with Parrish and that party…”
“None of them would have harmed her,” Traci said flatly. “They’re kids. Good kids. And they cared about her. I’ll ask them to be discreet, and I know they will be.”
Soft organ music was playing something vaguely ecclesiastical. A white-robed pastor appeared on the altar and led the congregation in prayers and scripture readings. Traci zoned it all out. The tears had started with the first chord of organ music, and she’d had to choke back her sobs, ignoring the pointed side-eye given her by Jolene Woods.
Charlie was right, she thought. This was a mistake. She felt panicky and would have fled the church, but one look at the stubborn set of Jolene’s jaw let her know she was trapped.
She closed her eyes and tried to meditate, tried to slow her breaths and focus on better, happier times. But the church was packed, and the warmth from all those bodies and the scent of Jolene’s overpowering perfume felt suffocating.
The pastor began his eulogy, and it was all Traci could do to stay seated and not run screaming out of the chapel. Working from notes, he mentioned Parrish’s family, talked about her beloved dog Patches, her love of the water and the beach, et cetera. She deliberately zoned out, catching only random phrases, but it was clear that this man, although well-meaning, had never met her niece.
This chapel had been Helen Eddings’s idea. She’d commissioned the architect who’d drawn up the design, and Fred had paid for the construction. He’d dutifully attended services there, but after his wife’s death had abandoned any pretense at being a man of faith.
Traci was fairly sure that this was Ric’s first time back in this church since his first wedding two decades earlier.
She gazed around the church and easily spotted the uncomfortable- looking dormmates, Olivia, Felice, and KJ. Garrett, she assumed, must be working in the restaurant.
As she looked around the sanctuary, she saw dozens of familiar faces—old Eddings family friends, some of Parrish’s classmates, longtime hotel staffers, and club members. Some gave her sad smiles. A few turned away quickly, refusing to allow their eyes to meet hers.
It was a small town, she told herself, and Ric had been vocal about blaming her for his child’s death. Still, the snubs stung.
There was another reading. More organ music. Traci relaxed, sensing the service was over. But then, the pastor stepped aside and a lone woman, clutching a guitar, took a seat on a high stool in front of a mike stand and started strumming and singing in a pure, clear voice.
She recognized the song at once, Eric Clapton’s poignant “Tears in Heaven,” but it was the singer/guitarist who was the surprise. It was Heather, Parrish’s long-absent mother.
Traci heard a soft, barely suppressed gasp from the congregation as they recognized her too, when Heather started to sing. She glanced to her right and found grim satisfaction in noting Jolene’s shocked expression.
She almost didn’t recognize her former sister-in-law. Heather’s once long, lustrous dark hair had been chopped short, and was now entirely silver. And she was at least thirty pounds heavier than the former rock goddess Ric Eddings had been transfixed by all those years ago.
When Heather played the last plaintive guitar chord and sang the last verse, the church fell silent, and then, the artist was met with scattered, restrained applause.
Jolene grabbed her husband’s arm. “Come on,” she said in a stage whisper. “We’ve got to get over to Ric’s so I can start putting out the food for the reception.”
It was a relief, watching everyone else leave the chapel. Traci lingered, not wanting to get caught up in the logjam of mourners who she knew, from painful personal experience, would be filing past Ric and Madelyn, expressing their condolences.
Finally, she slipped out a side door and was headed for her car when she heard a woman calling her name.
“Traci?” She turned and saw Heather hurrying toward her, the leather guitar case slung over her shoulder.
When Heather reached her, the two women stood inches apart, awkwardly sizing each other up. They hadn’t been close, not really. They’d see each other at family events; birthdays, holidays. Traci was busy with her job at the hotel, and Heather, at first, had a career of her own, as the lead singer in a band.
That’s how she’d met Ric Eddings, playing at a wedding reception at the Saint. He’d been instantly smitten by the exotic Heather and had pursued and won her in a matter of months. They’d married and Heather got pregnant not long after. She’d miscarried that first child, and then, within a year, had Parrish.
Three years later, when her daughter was in preschool, Heather left, telling Ric that life as a wife and mother was “stifling and soul-deadening.”
“Hi,” Heather said now, holding out a hand.
Traci took her hand, squeezed, and released. “Hey.”
Her former sister-in-law sighed. “Hey. I, uh, heard about Hoke, and I was so, so sorry. I wanted to call, but you know how it is. But lucky you, marrying the good brother.”
Traci bit her lower lip. “Heather, I don’t know what to say. Except that Parrish was amazing. In every way. She was smart and kind and fabulous. Maybe she got that from you.”
“Maybe. Guess we’ll never know, huh?”
With the back of her hand, Heather brushed her bangs from her eyes. She looked around. Mourners entering the parking lot were openly staring, then giving them a wide berth.
“Wow. It’s like we’re a couple of Typhoid Marys from the collective stink-eye people are giving us, huh? You wanna get out of here? Maybe go get a drink. Not at the hotel, though, okay?”
“There’s a dive bar a couple blocks from here. Pour Willy’s.”
“I remember the place,” Heather said. “Meet you there.”
Traci found a two-top booth near the back of the bar, and five minutes later, Heather slid into the seat on the opposite side of the table.
“Place looks about the same,” she commented, and nodded at Traci. “And so do you. But don’t bother trying to tell me I haven’t changed. We both know I’m older and fatter, and only maybe a little bit wiser.”
Their server, a girl barely out of her teens, in cut-offs and a tank top, arrived and took their orders.
“She reminds me a little of Parrish,” Heather said wistfully.
Traci looked up, surprised. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Graduation. I saw you there, from across the room, but Parrish didn’t want me anywhere near the rest of the family. She knew her dad would be pissed that I was there.”
“I had no idea you’d been in touch with her.”
“That was the general idea,” Heather said.
Their drinks arrived, club soda for Heather, wine for Traci, along with a basket of French fries.
“She found me on Facebook,” Heather confided. “The year Ric and Madelyn got married. I hadn’t posted anything on that page in ages, but for some reason, I looked at my page the week after the wedding, and saw that she’d private-messaged me. My heart about stopped.”
“I’ll bet,” Traci said, sipping her wine. “Can I ask? Where’ve you been all this time?”
“All over. I sang with different touring bands. After a couple years, I got tired of the road life and got a job as a booker. Married the boss and moved to Vermont.”
“Vermont,” Traci said wonderingly.
“I like it there. We have a big vegetable garden and I have chickens and a donkey. It’s quiet, but it’s good.”
“Still married?”
“Yeah. I finally figured out I should stay clear of bad boys.”
“Did you ever have any more children?”
Heather sipped her drink. “Nope. I didn’t think I had the right to bring any more kids into the world after I walked away from my own daughter.”
“Can I ask? Why did you walk away?”
“It’s complicated. I was so damn unhappy. With Ric. With myself. I was self-medicating for depression. My own mom was a shit show; a bad drunk, emotionally and physically abusive, and I could see myself following that path. I was messed up, and I was terrified I’d mess Parrish up too.”
“Well, I can’t pretend to understand that, but I can tell you this—Parrish turned out great.” Traci found herself tearing up again.
Heather plucked a napkin from the tabletop dispenser and handed it to her. “She was crazy about you too, you know. You were way more of a mom to her than Madelyn ever was.”
“She saved my life, after Hoke was killed. None of this seems real—her being gone like this. I really don’t know how I’m gonna make it without her now.”
“You will,” Heather said calmly. “You’re strong, Traci. I always admired that about you. When the old man and Ric treated you like shit, you’d just shrug it off and keep going.”
Traci laughed. “I always thought you thought I was stuck- up, although God knows I didn’t have anything to be stuck-up about.”
“The truth is, you intimidated me. You seemed to have your shit together. And Hoke so obviously adored you. Unlike my own husband, whose fascination with me faded fast.”
Heather made a face. “I almost didn’t come back for the funeral, excuse me, celebration of life. But I made myself do it.”
Heather propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “It’s no accident, us running into each other like this. I’ve kind of been stalking you.”
“Me? Why?”
The other woman’s gray eyes were unblinkingly focused on Traci’s. “I want answers. About Parrish. And I have a feeling you’re the only one who can give them to me.”
“I want answers too,” Traci said. “Has Ric told you anything at all?”
“He thinks I forfeited the right to mourn my child the day I walked away,” Heather said.
“Well, excuse me, but fuck him,” Traci said passionately.
“I do love a nice Southern gal who can drop an occasional F-bomb,” Heather said, chuckling. “Ric mentioned a party, way out in the woods?”
“Something like that,” Traci said, quickly filling her sister-in-law in on the missing elements of the rudimentary story she’d been told.
“Ric would like to blame it on her dormmates, but I just can’t see any of them wanting to harm Parrish. Most of them were there today, in the chapel. They’re a decent bunch of hardworking kids. They remind me a lot of my friends and me at that age, just really hustling, trying to make a living and have fun.”
“Could it have been drugs? Was she mixed up in anything like that?”
“I doubt it,” Traci said. “Parrish was sort of an old soul. Pretty conservative in her attitudes, for her age. Maybe she did a little recreational weed now and again, like we all did when we were that age, but I one hundred percent don’t think she was a heavy drug user.”
Heather shook her head violently, her eyes brimming over with tears, and she pounded the tabletop. “Then, why? Why her? Just when her life was starting. So full of possibilities…”
Traci placed both her hands over her former sister-in-law’s hands. “I feel the same way. And I promise you, I’m gonna do my best to get some answers. For both of us.”
“I better go,” Heather said abruptly. “My flight leaves in three hours, and I still have to turn in my rental car in Jacksonville.”
She held out her hand. “Here. Give me your phone. I’ll put my number in. Promise me you’ll call, or text, with any news. Anything at all.”
Traci handed over her phone and watched while Heather typed in her contact info.
“Hey, Heather? How’d you get Ric to agree to let you sing today? It was beautiful, by the way, so touching and appropriate.”
“Thanks. I didn’t really give him a choice. When he called to tell me about Parrish, I just flat told him, I’m coming, and I’m singing. Not for you. For her. To her. I used to sing to her all the time when she was a baby. Totally inappropriate songs, and no matter how bad a tantrum she was having, the sound of my voice always seemed to calm her down.”
“I’m glad,” Traci told her. “I’ll never hear that song again without thinking of you, singing one last time to our girl.”