Behold the Dreamers(88)
“Oh, Papa God!” Neni cried.
“But how could she die that kind of useless death?” Jende asked.
“Why didn’t she go to the doctor? She had all that money and she died in her own bed! Why didn’t one of her friends try to force her? Why didn’t anyone see that there was something wrong with her? What kind of country is this?”
According to Frank, Winston said, Cindy had closed the blinds on the world. Even Mimi, who was one of her good friends, had not seen her in months. Mimi had to show up at the Edwards apartment unannounced after weeks of her calls and emails not being returned, and after having almost a dozen three-way phone conversations with Cheri and June, who were restless and increasingly apprehensive because they couldn’t understand why Cindy wouldn’t tell them what was going on. The women had agreed that Cindy needed an intervention, and Mimi, three days before Cindy’s death, had walked into Cindy’s bedroom with Anna’s encouragement. There, she had seen her friend ashen and limp, near broken, in a white silk nightgown, sitting on her bed and staring at nothing in particular. Cindy had told her she was living in a darkness she couldn’t get out of, and Mimi had begged her to please go see a psychiatrist because she appeared to be dealing with a severe case of depression. Cindy had refused, saying she wasn’t depressed, but Mimi had pleaded for her to at least do it for the sake of her children. Think about Mighty, Mimi had said. Think about how it must feel for him to see his mother like this. Cindy had cried and, for her sons’ sake, agreed to go to a treatment center outside Boston, because with the end of her marriage seeming inevitable, her son in India not returning her calls and emails, her whole life beginning to seem more and more meaningless, she needed to do something now if she ever hoped to taste happiness again. She made Mimi promise not to tell anyone what they’d discussed, not even Frank, not even Cheri or June. She was going to apologize to everyone for ignoring their calls and emails and tell them everything as soon as she felt better.
Neni’s hand remained on her chest throughout the story, her mouth agape. When Winston was done recounting it, she wiped the tears that had been running down her cheeks with the hem of her skirt.
“Should I call Mr. Edwards tonight?” Jende asked.
“No,” Winston said. “Maybe in a few weeks or months. Too much is happening for them right now. Frank only told me all this because I saw him when he stopped by the office on his way to pick Clark up from the airport. He’ll let me know when the date for the memorial service is, and I’ll let you know.”
Jende shook his head sadly. “But how is Mr. Edwards going to manage?”
“Frank said the man was crying so hard over the phone,” Winston said. “It sounds like no matter what happened between them, he truly loved his wife.”
Forty-six
MIGHTY EDWARDS WORE A GRAY SUIT AND PLAYED A BEAUTIFULLY IMPERFECT Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” at the memorial service, which took place a week later. In the front pew, Clark sat with his sunglasses on. The mourners, all two hundred or so of them, sat glum under the hundred-foot-high roof of the Church of St. Paul the Apostle on the corner of Sixtieth Street and Columbus Avenue. Around them were depictions of the Savior and the Holy Mother, above them two rows of pendant lighting, and to their right, on a little table, a prayer book where all who were burdened, all who were weary, all who were brokenhearted, could leave prayer requests and pleas for blessings.
The priest thanked God for loving Cindy Edwards and calling her to spend eternity with Him. What a great rejoicing must be happening in heaven, he said. After the congregation had sung “Nearer, My God, to Thee” and a soloist had sung “Peace, Perfect Peace,” Frank and Mimi’s daughter, Nora Dawson, in a black body-fitting long-sleeved mini dress, her blond hair blow-dried straight like that of her deceased godmother on some of the best days of her life, walked to the altar and read from John, chapter fourteen, verses one to three: Jesus’ promise to his disciples.
“‘Do not let your hearts be troubled,’” she read. “‘Believe in God; believe also in me. My father’s house has many rooms. If that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that wherever I am, there you will be also.’ Amen.”
When the moment for eulogy arrived—after the priest had assured the mourners in his message that indeed, Jesus had prepared a special room for Cindy in heaven; after communion had been served; after Cheri had read a poem she’d commissioned titled “No one warned me loving you would leave me this broken”—Vince Edwards stood up and walked to the front.
He had no sheet from which he read. He spoke in anecdotes. Of the mother who roughhoused with him with her pearls on, back when he was a little boy. Of the mother who took him hiking in the Adirondacks just so she could lose her last ten ounces of belly fat. Cindy’s clients, models and actresses who had filled a pew in the center of the church, giggled. He spoke of his mother’s passion for healthy living, her commitment to her clients to help them eat better, have better lives, look better, and be better because they looked better. He spoke of her love for her friends, her love for those who needed her. He spoke of her love of the arts—the forced trips to the Met, her failed attempt to get him to learn the violin, her successful attempt to get Mighty to play the piano so he could one day show the world his talent at Carnegie Hall. Someone in the front clapped. Others joined.