“Can Josh come out?” A redhead about the size of Josh stood on the porch. “We're playing catch.”
Josh's sad face lifted immediately. “Can I, Mom, please?”
“Sure.” She kissed the boy on the top of his head. “Stay out front.”
Clay waited three feet from Laura and watched as she closed both double doors and turned to him. Sadness stirred his soul as their eyes locked. He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms and release her from the pretense, tell her it was all right to cry, that they should be crying, in fact, because maybe, just maybe Eric wasn't coming home. Tell her that it was all right to grieve the fact and believe that somehow, someday she'd be okay again. They both would be.
She must've read his thoughts because her smile faded and fear filled her eyes, as though finally the denial was lifting, and suddenly she was face-to-face with the most frightening possibilities in all her life. Her body seemed to shrink as she fell lightly against one of the closed front doors. “I can read your mind, Clay.”
He took a step closer and let his shoulder lean against the wall a few feet from her. “What's it saying?”
Laura let her head fall forward. There was silence for a moment as the late summer breeze sifted through the open windows in the vast living room and into the place where they stood. The smell of some kind of flower hung in the air and mixed with the distant sounds of Josh and his friends playing catch in the front yard.
When she looked up there were tears in her eyes. “You don't think he's coming back.”
Clay felt her pain, felt it wrap around his heart and take his breath away. He said nothing, not just because his throat was too thick to speak, but because anything honest he might utter now would only hurt her more.
Her gaze was direct, unwavering; this time she wanted an answer. “You think he's dead, right?”
“Well …” His mouth opened, but nothing came out. Give me the words, Lord … help me get her through this. “What do you think, Laura?” He kept his voice low, gentler than the breeze. “Do you really think he's coming home?”
It was the first time he'd tried to reason with her, tried to get her to see the impossibility of her unfounded hope. The question seemed to hit her in stages, and Clay took in each of them as they played across her face. Shock … anger … frustration … and finally a sense of cavernous sorrow and futility. A knowing that all the pretending in the world wasn't going to change the facts.
“No …”
She took a step back and slid slowly down toward the floor, her shoulder still pressing into the wall. As she hit the floor, a sorrowful sound came from her. It was raw and gut-wrenching, and it became a series of sobs unlike anything Clay had ever heard. As a police officer he'd often been the bearer of bad news, the one who'd rung a family's doorbell in a way that would interrupt their lives forever. He'd held countless devastated friends and family members at the scenes of fatal accidents.
But grief does not follow a pattern, and the weeping coming from Laura was more than a dawning reality that Eric might be dead. It was that, but it was something more, as though she wasn't only grieving the loss of Eric, but the loss of her own life as well. The loss of their marriage, their family, and all that she and Eric had failed to be.
He went to her, slipped his hands under her arms, and lifted her until she fell into his embrace. “Laura … I'm sorry.”
She buried her head in his chest and held on to his shirtsleeves. Twenty minutes passed while she stayed that way, letting the sobs empty from a place that must have carried them around for far too long. Finally, when he could no longer feel her sobs shuddering against him, she spoke, her voice so broken she could hardly speak. “He … he isn't coming home, is he?” she said as she tightened her grip on his arms.
He pulled her close again and spoke softly against her hair. “I don't think so.”
She pulled back and wiped her fingertips beneath her eyes. They were swollen and bloodshot, and she looked faint, as though she might collapse again. “I kept thinking today was the day. Somehow … somehow he hadn't been able to get through, but he'd find a way to get home when he was supposed to. On a bus or a train … something.” She drew in a slow, shaky breath. “But if he and Allen were on the sixty-fourth floor … They're still looking for people, right?”
Clay studied her, but the face he saw wasn't that of a weary, frightened woman facing the death of her husband. It was the face of a girl he'd known since his freshman year in high school. “They haven't found anyone alive in the rubble since yesterday afternoon.”
“I know. I guess I just thought …” She sniffed. “I thought God might give me a miracle. That somehow despite all the evidence, Eric had actually survived.”
He smoothed his hands down the lengths of her arms. “I want to believe that too.” Clay thought about the news report he'd heard that morning when Laura was in the shower. Apparently, cell phones were ringing deep in the rubble. He hadn't told her. None of the reports said anything about anyone actually answering the calls.
Laura took a few steps back and glanced out the window toward Josh and his friends. “He missed so much over the years.”
Clay worked the muscles in his jaw. “He should've told me.” He hesitated. “You should've told me, Laura. I could've talked some sense into him.”
“No, Clay.” Laura hugged her arms against her chest and whispered a sad laugh. “If he wouldn't listen to me, he wouldn't have listened to you, either.”
“You tried, though … the two of you?” This new image of Eric still didn't ring true. As though they were talking about someone else, and not the brother he'd looked up to all his life.
“Yes.” Laura turned back toward him. “After we lost the baby, nothing was ever the same. Over the years, we tried three times since then. Tension would build, I'd force the issue, and we'd have counseling six, maybe eight weeks. For a while things would seem better, but it always came back to his first love.”
The phrase caught Clay off guard. Back when they were young, when their own parents had divorced, Eric would find his mother in the den and reason with her. “Mom … if God's your first love, then you have to at least try. You and Dad owe it to each other.”
The words echoed in Clay's mind. If God's your first love … He blinked the memory back and searched Laura's eyes. “His first love?”
She exhaled through her nose and gave a small shrug. “Koppel and Grant, Clay. Always Koppel and Grant.” Laura touched his arm and nodded toward the boys outside. “Go play with him, will you? I need a few minutes by myself.”
“Okay.” He met her eyes once more. “You sure you're all right?”
She nodded. “I just need a few minutes with God.”
“To pray for Eric?”
“No.” She gave him a smile that stopped short of her eyes. “To ask Him why He took him from me. Before we found a way to work things out.”
Clay reached out, gave her hand a tender squeeze, and left through the front door. He jogged toward the boys playing outside near the street.
“Hey, Josh … you got room for another rookie?”
“Uncle Clay!” The child's face lit up. He ran to Clay and jumped into his arms before falling back to the ground and racing over to the other boys. “My uncle's gonna play with us. He's so good, you guys won't believe it!”
****
Inside the house Laura heard her son's excitement, saw the look on his face as he hugged Clay and led him into an impromptu game of baseball. The tears were gone for now, her eyes and her heart dry as she thought about the possibility. Was it true? Could Eric really be gone, buried in the ruins of the World Trade Center? Without ever finding a way back to the love they'd once shared?
Laura swallowed, and her heartbeat pounded in her temples. Her headache would only be worse after so much crying. She hung her head and closed her eyes. The façade had been for her benefit, hers and Josh's. She'd convinced herself that Eric would call or grab a train or find his way home, but now even th
at was too much effort. The truth was as clear as air. Unless they found him soon, she wouldn't ever see him again.
If Eric wasn't in one of the hospitals or rescue missions, if he hadn't called her or found a way to get a message sent home, then there was only one other answer. He was somewhere in the pile. Laura hadn't watched TV reports since Tuesday, but she wasn't completely ignorant. She'd watched the tower come down, after all, the force so great it looked like a bomb had gone off. And not just any bomb. But a nuclear bomb, like the one they'd dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.
The truth was, no one could've survived that force. Especially not sandwiched somewhere in the middle of it.
Laura found her favorite chair, the one that faced the front windows and allowed her to stare at the sky and wonder. She sat down, leaned her head back, and let her eyes get lost in the deep cloudless blue. What could she say to God now? If Eric was dead, then it was too late to ask for help or strength or a miracle. Besides, why would God answer her now. He hadn't answered her prayers that Tuesday morning. She blinked and thought about that. It would've been nothing to a mighty God to alter the course of those planes or cause Eric to leave the building with the others. Eric could've taken his business trip a week before or a week after. God could've foiled the hijackers' plans somehow, or held the buildings up with His bare hands to keep them from falling. But He didn't.
She watched a hawk circle over the chaparral-covered hill that bordered their neighborhood, and she felt the hint of a smile play at the corners of her lips. Eric used to love eagles. God … is he dead? Have you taken him home? She blinked, her eyes dry.
Nothing about prayer seemed natural these days, so she sighed and lowered her gaze to Clay and the boys playing in the street. She clenched her teeth and leaned back into the chair. Forget counseling and stale cures for the things that ailed their marriage. She should've screamed at him, shaken him, demanded that he love her and Josh the way they needed to be loved.
Begged him to stay home from New York.
She glanced up once more. The hawk overhead soared in another circle, this one closer to her hillside home.
God, I'd do anything for another chance with him. Anything.
Often, in days past, Laura would feel some sort of response to her prayers, a Scripture that might come to mind, or a whispered word of encouragement echoing deep in her soul. But this time there was nothing. No bits of direction or sense that somehow God had heard her prayer. Only the awful certainty that now, after all her missed opportunities to make a difference with Eric, she'd run out of time. He wasn't going to call or walk through the front door, not now or ever again. Laura felt the familiar sting of tears, and she wasn't sure which hurt worse. The tragedy of what had obviously happened to Eric, or the loss of all they could've shared in the future.
If only she'd had one more chance.
NINETEEN
SEPTEMBER 13, 2001
Bringing Sierra to the hospital that night to see Jake took every bit of Jamie's strength. In the end she begged Jake's father to come with her. He'd planned to save his visit for the next day so Jamie and Sierra could have time alone with Jake.
But Jamie was terrified to see him again.
“He didn't know me, Dad. Not at all.” Jamie's hands shook, and she could barely think. Anxiety gnawed at her insides. “Come with me, please. I can't go alone. Besides, maybe he'll remember you.”
Jim Bryan had agreed, and now he was getting ready. Sierra had dressed herself in the new pink church dress, the one Jake had made such a fuss over just last Sunday. The child was sitting sweetly in the TV room playing with her dolls. Jamie watched her from the kitchen and wanted to join her, sit beside her and tell her everything was going to be okay with her daddy. But she couldn't stop shaking long enough to string a sentence together. Obviously Jake had a brain injury, something terribly wrong. The two of them had known each other forever, it seemed. FDNY shifts were twelve on, twelve off. Jake had gotten day shifts almost from the beginning, and they were never apart for more than a single night.
How could he not know her?
Her mouth was dry and her mind raced. She poured herself a glass of water and emptied it in three gulps. What if his memory never came back? How was she supposed to teach him to love her the way he always had, as far back as she could remember? She bit the inside of her lip and gripped the kitchen counter, looking out over their small backyard. Jake's love was something she had absolutely counted on. He might die, yes, but as long as he drew breath, Jake Bryan would love her. Never in all her hours of worrying had she considered he might get hurt, that a head injury could rob him of a lifetime of memories they'd built together.
Sierra popped up from the sofa and skipped toward her, the pink dress fluffing softly behind her. “Let's go.” She tilted her head and smiled. “I wanna see Daddy.”
“As soon as Papa's ready.” Jamie exhaled and felt herself grow just a bit calmer. At least Jake's father would be with them. She ran her fingers over Sierra's brow and realized something. She needed to prepare her daughter for what she was about to see. “Honey … Daddy's at the hospital because he got hurt. You know that, right?”
“Papa said he's at the hos'apul, and his head has an owie.”
“Right.” Jamie nodded and studied Sierra's eyes. The child had no idea. “But the doctors put lots of bandages on Daddy's head and face. He won't look …” Her voice caught and she swallowed a sob. “He won't look like he used to.”
“You mean because he got a hurt face, too?”
“Yes, sweetie.” Jamie pulled Sierra close and hugged her. “But the doctors are making him better.” She drew back and locked eyes with her daughter again. “Okay?”
“Okay.” Sierra's eyes grew wide and she did a little gulp. “Can he come home with us?”
“Not for a few days.”
Footsteps sounded from the other room, and Jim Bryan walked up to them, his eyes narrow, braced in anticipation. It was a look Jake got when he talked about working a tough call, the look he and his father probably both had at any fire. He reached out and gave Jamie's arm a gentle squeeze. “Let's go.”
She was grateful beyond words for his presence. It allowed her to think through the situation, to imagine how they were going to survive it. They left the house together, and forty minutes later all three of them walked into Jake's hospital room. He lay flat on the bed, his head still fully bandaged. They filed inside, and Jamie couldn't tell if he was awake.
“Daddy?” Sierra stopped short, her eyes wide.
“Jake …” Jamie took Sierra's hand and stepped closer to her husband's bed. “Sierra's here.”
At the sound of her name, his eyes blinked open. With small, strained movements, he turned his head and peered at her. All that showed of his mouth was a small opening in the gauze, so it was impossible to tell if he was smiling, if seeing his daughter was enough to jolt some sort of awakening in him. He kept his eyes locked on the girl, and finally he was able to make his lips work enough to speak. “Sierra …”
Sierra squeezed Jamie's hand and hid partially behind her. She tilted her face up, and Jamie was struck by what she saw there.
The child was scared to death. She'd never seen Jake as anything other than the muscled, active, healthy man he'd been before Tuesday morning.
This man—lying on a hospital bed wrapped in bandages—was someone she not only didn't recognize. But someone who scared her.
“Mommy ” Sierra's voice was a whisper. “What's wrong with him?”
Jim Bryan took a few steps backwards and let them have this moment, the three of them. Jamie tried to find the right words. “Daddy got hurt at work, baby.”
Her little girl eyes became almost perfect circles. “In a fire?”
“Yes, sweetie.” Jamie looked at Jim for help, but he was staring at Jake. Probably as stunned as Sierra at the sight he made there in the hospital bed. “He got hurt in a fire.”
“Then ” Sierra shifted her gaze to Jake and
swallowed hard. “I'll pray for him. So he'll get better.”
“Yes, let's do that in a few minutes, okay?” Jamie stepped closer and looked down at her husband. “How're you feeling?”
His eyes met hers, but it was impossible to make out his expression. “My face stings.”
“I'm sorry.” Seconds of silence felt like hours, and Jamie searched for something to say. Finally, she reached back and motioned for Jake's father to come alongside her. He was hesitant, but finally he took his place on the other side of Sierra.
Jamie looked back at Jake. “I brought your dad.”
Jake blinked and moved his head enough to see Jim Bryan. “You're my dad?”
“Hello, son.” Jim took Jake's hand, his eyes glistening. “Everything's going to be fine.”
“I'm your son?” Jake stared up at Jim.
Jake looked as fearful as Sierra, and Jamie wanted to jolt herself, make herself wake up from the nightmare they were suddenly thrust into. It wasn't happening … it couldn't be. Jake would never not know her … or his father. It was impossible.
“Yes, Jake.” Jim Bryan nodded as a single tear made its way down his weathered cheek. “I'm your dad.”
“Oh.” Jake stared at him for another few seconds and then let his gaze fall back to Sierra.
When she realized that Jake was looking at her, she must've decided to be brave. She peeked out from behind Jamie and touched her small fingers to Jake's hand. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi.” Jake's eyes were flat.
“Is Jesus going to make you better?”
He gave a quick glance at Jamie and his father. “I hope so.”
Jamie's knees felt weak. How must it feel to Jake, lying there unable to recognize any of them except Sierra? And why Sierra? Why not her, when he'd loved her forever? How could he remember one of the girls in his life but not the other? The entire scene felt disjointed and uncomfortable, like a poorly scripted play.
Jake's father cleared his throat and was about to say something when Jamie heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw Captain Hisel from the station. He was in his work pants and shirt, and his face looked haggard, as though he hadn't slept in weeks. Jamie could only imagine the heartache he was dealing with at the station and throughout the city.