Ashes (3 page)

The survivors came, those who could. Some were in the hospitals still. Others stayed away, unable to face the scene again. No one blamed them for this. Whether they blamed themselves was another matter.

* * *

C
indy’s knock at the bathroom door was gentle, less a knock than a faint tap. “Jennifer? Coffee’s about ready.”

“Be there in a minute,” Jennifer replied. The bathroom was dim with the light off, and dimmer still with the shower curtain pulled all the way around the tub. She lay in the warm water, submerged save for her head, and for her left arm, which hung outside the tub so the cast would not get wet. The air was heavy with steam, the mirrors opaqued. Tiny beads of water clung to Jennifer’s hair.

Despite the room’s humid warmth she shivered. Chilly somehow even now, and she could not explain why. She’d been cold ever since she’d come home from the hospital. She could not bring herself to ask a doctor about it, for to do so she would have had to talk about the bombing; instead, late at night when Cindy slept and Jennifer could not, she consulted some websites and found no definitive reason for her chill other than “stress.”

The cold followed her everywhere. No matter how many blankets she piled on at night or how high the thermostat was set she felt it. No matter that the Santa Ana winds had come, bringing their dry northeast heat. It followed her every place but here, the bathtub, and consequently that was her haven, here in the steamy dimness. She ran her right hand over her face, relishing the warmth of the water on her skin. Jennifer took a breath and slid down, under the water’s surface, eyes closed, wishing she had gills and could stay here forever, be safe and warm and untouchable.

* * *

J
ennifer in her jeans and a loose-fitting t-shirt that was easy to manage with her cast, her hair wet but combed out neatly, sat at the little dining room table she had bought on sale at Ikea with her Christmas money. She sipped her coffee and looked curiously at the table’s surface. She had never noticed the little patterns in the wood grain before. Had they been there when she bought the table? Was this the table she had bought? She couldn’t remember.

“Want some cereal? Toast maybe?” Cindy was in the kitchen, slathering butter and boysenberry jam on her English muffin. Dear Cindy, Jennifer’s kid sister. She’d left her twins in the care of her husband and mother-in-law, braved the fears of further attacks, had come out from New Jersey on a three-quarters empty plane. She made herself at home on Jennifer’s lumpy couch for the first night. Until the memories of the bombing got into Jennifer’s dreams and made her wake moaning and crying, and then Cindy slept in the bed with Jennifer, as they had during childhood summers when they visited their grandmother’s house and shared a bed. Cindy cooked comfort-food meals like roast chicken and mashed potatoes, tomato soup made with milk and a little dollop of butter. Cindy rented movies for them to watch, fluffy romantic comedies. Cindy fielded the phone calls that came in from well-wishers, reporters, and lawyers; she took Jennifer to the doctor to make sure her injuries were healing. She was good as gold, Jennifer thought, better even, and if none of it really helped it was not Cindy’s fault.

“Jen?”

“Sorry. Toast, if it’s no problem.”

“Sure. Medium-burnt?”

This was an old family joke. All the Thomsons liked their toast well-done, the only question was just how burnt they liked it. “That’s fine,” Jennifer said. “No jam, just butter.”

“Coming right up.” After a few minutes the smell of charring bread filled the kitchen, and Cindy placed three slices of toast in front of Jennifer. She sat down and watched as Jennifer nibbled at the toast. After a moment she said, “Jen, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“The doc says I’m doing fine.”

“It’s not that. I mean, it’s only been a week.”

“Nine days,” Jennifer said before she could stop herself. She hadn’t wanted Cindy to know she’d been counting.

“Nine days,” amended Cindy. “Are you...I don’t know. Up to it?”

“I think so. I mean, I just feel it’s the right thing to do.”

“OK,” said Cindy. “I’m going to go have a shower and get dressed. Then we’ll go. All right? And we’ll stay only as long as you want to.”

“Thanks.”

Cindy left the table and Jennifer sat, drinking coffee and eating toast without tasting either. She could not tell Cindy the truth, that despite the constant news coverage and the nightmares and the dust that still hung over downtown Los Angeles, she could not believe that it had happened. It was too much to take in. She needed to know it was real.

Perhaps seeing the site would help. She did not dare to think that it might not.

For something to do, she looked over the list of phone messages Cindy had written down. Reporters, so many of them. People from the government. One name appeared over and over again: Amber LaSalle, from Ellis and Associates Representation. Jennifer shrugged, pushed the list aside. She had no plans to call any of these people.

Halfway through her second piece of toast, her throat locked up. These days, she could hardly eat. Her body let her eat only enough to maintain and then, abruptly, took all the desire for food from her. There was no nausea or revulsion, merely a complete disinterest in food. If it happened while she was chewing, she had to spit out that mouthful; she had tried to swallow when this happened and could not. If she had looked at herself in the mirror, she would have seen that she was already losing weight. But she could no more stand to look in a mirror than she could force down any more of this toast.

She dumped the last of the toast into the sink, fed it into the garbage disposal, and sat down, waiting for Cindy.

* * *

T
hough they were only half-siblings, Jennifer the child of their mother’s first marriage and Cindy the child of the second, Cindy was a true sister. Trying to do right by Jennifer, Cindy had kept some things from her.

She had not told Jennifer that, according to the news reports, there had been no claims of responsibility for the bombing, and no immediate suspects other than the usual Middle Eastern extremists. She had not told Jennifer of the death toll, 361 as of this morning, nor that Jennifer was the only survivor of the grants department.

She had not told Jennifer that she was famous.

Televisions across the world had been capturing the events, and nearly every major news media outlet in the U.S. had been there when the firefighter carried Jennifer out of the dust cloud. The image of Jennifer crying in her rescuer’s arms had made it to every newspaper; had been the cover image for
Time, U.S. News and World Report,
and
People
; was replayed endlessly on TV; had been duplicated and downloaded all over the internet.

Jennifer and Cindy made their way to the fence surrounding the site. There were nudges and whispers from onlookers, but Jennifer noticed nothing. She was focused on the building beyond the chain-link fence.

A thin haze of dust still hung over the site. Most had been blown away by the Santa Anas. A section of wall, with a window miraculously intact, was all that remained of the building. The rest was a heap of rubble — concrete and steel and plaster and office furniture and glass all in one great heap. Nothing recognizable any more.

Real. All real. Jennifer hooked her fingers through the fence and stared, watching the crews tear apart the wreckage. The caution of the first week had disappeared. After nine days, there was no hope left.

Real. She waited for relief, and felt nothing. It was still too hard to believe that this building was gone. That so many people with their lives and families, loves and hates, endearing habits and annoying tics, were gone. Forever.

She had nearly been one of them.

Jennifer turned away from the fence; breathing hard, not wanting to because of the smell of destruction that still hung in the air but unable to stop. She walked to where the relatives stood, with pictures in their hands, hoping. As she walked, Cindy beside her, she began to hear the murmurs of the strangers nearby.

“Her. That’s her.”

“Oh my God, the girl from the —”

“—last one out, one more minute and —”

She wondered who they were talking about, why the crowds miraculously parted for her and Cindy. Wondered why the cops and firemen gave her grave, respectful nods. She only had eyes for the people standing with their pictures, because she recognized one.

The woman stood, wearing a dark blue dress, one hand clasped over her pregnant belly, the other holding a picture. A picture of Carlos: the account manager who had helped Jennifer down the stairs, the pregnant woman’s husband. Jennifer swallowed hard, remembering how happy Carlos had been at the department Christmas party when he’d announced that Nancy was expecting. Remembering that she and Carrie had been taking up collections for a gift basket full of necessities for the baby and little luxuries for Nancy.

Remembering Carlos at the bottom of the stairwell, his neck broken.

Nancy stood, eyes dark and wide, always with one hand over her stomach and one holding the picture. “I’m going to talk to her,” Jennifer said to Cindy.

“Do you want me there?”

“Just stay nearby.”

“OK.”

She walked up to Nancy, unsure of what to say. But Nancy spoke first. “Jennifer. How are you doing?”

What could she say?
Hanging in there? Doing fine?
Instead she asked, “How are you?”

Nancy bowed her head, her long black hair falling forward, and she was perversely lovely, a grieving Madonna. “I’ve come here every day. I know that it’s too late. I know that Carlos isn’t...” She sighed harshly, looked up at Jennifer. “I know, and I can’t help it, I keep coming here.” The hand clasped over her stomach was not empty; Jennifer saw a rosary entwined in Nancy’s fingers.

Nancy bowed her head again, eyes closed. Her fingers moved to the next bead on the rosary but her lips did not move. Jennifer swallowed hard. “Nancy.” She could not go on.

“You know, don’t you?” Nancy asked without looking up.

“He helped me down the stairs. I hurt my ankle, and he was helping me down the stairs. And, I don’t know, maybe there was another explosion and we fell...” She trailed off, unsure of what to say.

“You don’t have to tell me the rest,” Nancy said. She clenched the rosary beads. “He’s dead?”

“Yes.” Jennifer had never found it so hard to say one simple word.

Nancy’s head was still bowed. “He didn’t...suffer?”

“No.” She somehow forced the word out through the vise of pain around her throat.

“I knew he was gone. I knew,” Nancy said, and then she had her arms around Jennifer, and Jennifer was hugging her back with an awkward one-armed embrace. Nancy cried and Jennifer could not somehow, much as she wanted to.

After a few minutes Nancy pulled away. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Do you need a ride home?” Jennifer asked.

“No. I’ll stay here for a little while.” Nancy returned to the stance Jennifer had found her in, her fingers moving over the rosary beads. “Thank you,” she said again, and then began murmuring soft Spanish prayers. “
Dios te salve, Maria, llena eres de gracia.”

Not wanting to intrude further on Nancy’s grief, Jennifer turned away. She was exhausted, numb inside, chilly on the outside. She wanted to find Cindy and go home, wanted to crawl into a nice hot bath. As she walked, searching for Cindy, she became aware of the click and whir of a camera. Who or what were they taking pictures of? Simultaneous with the realization they were photographing
her
, a well-coiffed reporter accompanied by a cameraman appeared in front of her.

“Miss Thomson, could we have a word with you?” he asked. She vaguely recognized him from the local news.

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

He and the cameraman exchanged glances. He did not answer her but instead asked, “How do you feel, coming back to this scene?”

“What?” she asked, still wondering how he knew her name. Her eye caught a nearby newsstand. There. Her picture on the magazine covers. Now it all fell into place, and she had to...

“Find my sister. I’m sorry.” She pushed her way past the reporter, head down but still trying to look for Cindy, and then Cindy caught hold of her good arm.

“Come on, Jen, let’s go home.”

“Yes, please.”

The reporter persisted. “Miss Thomson, if I could just—”

“Take a hike,” Cindy snapped.

They got into the car and drove back in silence, for Jennifer could not bring herself to tell Cindy about Nancy. Nor did she know what to think of her picture and the way everyone seemed to know her.

At home, Jennifer took a long bath and tried to think only about Nancy. For the first time, she felt a little better about things. At least she had been able to give Nancy some comfort.

* * *

S
he went back two days later. Cindy was gone, shooed out the door by Jennifer. “You need a day when you’re not taking care of me.”

“You’ll be OK?” Cindy asked.

“Yeah. I’ll probably just be here today, watch a movie or something.”

Instead, she took a cab to downtown Los Angeles. She stood by the fence, and things were much the same as they had been two days ago. Nancy was not there, but that was the only difference as far as Jennifer could tell. She stood, watching, not talking to anyone, just looking on as the crews continued their grim work.

From time to time reporters hovered near, tried to ask questions, but she ignored them. She heard the steady clicking of cameras, and tried to ignore that as well.

“How does it feel?” said a voice.

Jennifer looked up at the speaker, a blonde woman in her early forties. Even without the photo she held, Jennifer recognized her.

“Mrs. Danvers.” The wife of the man who’d told her to run, stopped her from taking the elevator instead of the stairs. If she was here, she was not just his wife, but his widow.

“Mrs. Danvers,” she began. “I’m Jen—”

“Oh, I know who you are.” Madeline Danvers said. She had lost weight since Jennifer had seen her last, her nose and chin were sharp. “Everyone knows. The last one out. The only one from grants to make it out.”