“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.”
CHAPTER 38
When Livvy, Felice, and KJ got to the back of the chapel, Felice deftly guided them out the door and away from the family receiving line, where Ric and Madelyn were shaking hands and being patted on the back.
