Memphis: A Novel(59)

Daddy showed a hint of surprise, but not shock. I believe he could remember the power my mama had over him. He opened his hands in forgiveness, but said nothing.

In that long moment, I truly believed that my parents, in some past time, would have crossed the Sahara for each other. Arms outstretched, seeking each other out before water.

“You”—Daddy pointed to Mama, then to me—“you were the first thing I came for. When I saw that wall of fire…” His voice caught. He looked away from us. Gathering himself, he cleared his throat.

He started to tell his story haltingly. Said how the burning bodies were what would stay with him. That and the initial sound of the plane’s engine careening toward the building. He said that he and Bird and Mazz had run to one wall, their fatigues and service shirts bandaged over their hands and mouths, so the fire wouldn’t burn them and the smoke wouldn’t choke them as they pulled people out of the burning rubble. Folk were covered in soot. Head to foot. Others, simply on fire. Screaming into melting concrete.

We were quiet, listening. Mama’s arms were no longer folded—she was taking sips of her coffee—but she seemed determined to look unaffected by the hell Daddy was describing. I tried to mirror her.

In a rush, Daddy explained that he had tried calling us, but my aunt had been right: The phone lines were down. For three days the phones did not work. He couldn’t catch a flight. Every airport in America was closed. So, he hopped into that black Mustang of his and drove.

Daddy took a deep breath then and began again, speaking more slowly this time. We were all looking at him, but he was looking only at Mama. That and the desperation in his voice, the way it sounded almost like a plea, gave me the impression he was offering up this story to her as both explanation and apology for something else altogether.

He told us he’d been smoking a Kool with Uncle Bird and Uncle Mazz outside the southwestern corner of the Pentagon. Uncle Bird had flown down from Chicago to see his big brother make lieutenant colonel. The ceremony was scheduled for the morning of the eleventh.

Daddy said he’d been looking at the yellow underbellies of the leaves on an oak in the Pentagon’s entrance when they heard a low roar. Approaching. Mechanical. Growing louder. The three of them had scanned the parking lot for a truck, but they only saw a handful of latecomers and a wide sea of parked cars.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Daddy described seeing the cigarette drop from his brother’s mouth. He’d followed Uncle Bird’s eyes, and that’s when he’d seen it.

The Boeing 757 barreled straight toward them. Low. Lower than he’d ever seen a plane except at an airport. Bird or Mazz had shouted, but the sound of the engine was so loud now, it drowned out whatever they’d said.

Daddy said that though it was irrational, he’d been certain the plane would stop. That it would turn at the last moment, or pull up, fly past the building where he and Mazz and Bird and twenty-five thousand other military personnel and civilians worked alongside one another.

But the plane did not stop. It angled itself farther toward the innards of the building and flew straight into the western side of the Pentagon.

The kitchen was quiet except for the sound of Daddy’s voice, low and steady. Eyes still on Mama. She put her cigarette out on the ashtray and took a sip of coffee. But I could see the muscles in her neck were tensed.

The anger I had felt for years at my father was what I had had instead of him. It was all I had of him. So, I carried it with me always, like a rose quartz in my palm. And it was slowly disappearing, my quartz. Growing tiny. I was hardly feeling the rough edges of it anymore. I realized, as time passed in the kitchen, the grandfather clock in the parlor having sung its swan song three times now, that love was wearing me down. Love, like a tide, just washing over and over that piece of rock. And I believed that only God—and maybe Miss Dawn—could change a tide.

Daddy went on. He said the three of them had been knocked off their feet by the impact, but that the first thing they did was to grope around in the smoke and dust to find each other. Mazz and Daddy found each other at nearly the same time—their Marine training making them uniquely suited for the aftermath of the world exploding—then searched frantically for Bird, who had been thrown farther but was okay.

Almost as soon as they found Uncle Bird, they started hearing faint, urgent sounds through the ringing in their ears. The screech of metal; stone breaking. Screams of people trapped inside the building. The fierce roar of fire engulfing both plane and building, peppered with the noise of metal snapping, stone falling.

That’s when they realized that people were running out of the building and that those people were burning. Daddy said he could smell it—charred hair and seared flesh.

I saw Daddy wipe his eyes with the back of his hand, whereas I had just let mine flow, the taste of my tears turning my coffee salty. We had started weeping at the same time some hours before. How similar we were…I was his daughter whether I wanted to be or not.

He took a sip of his coffee, and I realized his hands were shaking slightly. He looked more exhausted now than he had when he first walked in.

Early dawn light made the kitchen glow a pale blue. It had taken the length of the night to tell his story. I heard birds outside start to sing.

I looked at Mama. Her arms were crossed tightly in front of her again.

Uncle Bird passed a lit cigarette to Auntie August, who accepted. They had stood like that the entire time, their shoulders touching lightly.