Ground Zero(39)

Not something. Someone.

Richard stood from his chair. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

He had seen it too, then. Brandon wasn’t imagining things. A man in dark pants and a white shirt and a light blue tie had just fallen past their window, twenty stories in the air.

“Hello? Brandon? Is that you?” his father said, finally answering the phone.

“Dad! Oh my God, Dad, I just saw a man falling past the window!”

“Brandon, I—I can’t talk long,” his father said slowly. His voice was quiet. Weak. “Everybody else—everybody is down on 106. We broke a window to get some air. The smoke is getting thicker. But I waited—”

“Dad, you have to get up to the roof! Get to the helicopters!” Brandon told him.

“Can’t. Too much smoke,” his dad said sadly. “Helicopters can’t land.”

What? How could that be? The helicopters had to be able to land on the roof! How else were they supposed to get all those trapped people out?

“The floor is groaning. Buckling. Fire’s coming up through the floor,” Brandon’s father said. “No sprinklers. We already threw the fire extinguisher out the window to break it open for air. Not that it would help.”

Brandon realized he was crying. He knew what his father was telling him. He could hear it in the strain in his voice, in the things he was saying. His dad just didn’t want to say it, and Brandon didn’t want to hear it.

“Dad,” Brandon said. “Dad, you have to get out of there.” He felt so helpless. He knew there was nothing he could do, nothing his father could do, or his dad would have done it already. But still he tried to think of something.

“Brandon, I want you to do something with your life, all right?” his dad said. His voice was trembling. “I want you to get out of this building and survive and do something worth living for. Do you understand?”

“Stop it!” Brandon cried. “Stop talking like that!”

“Brandon—”

“No!” Brandon told him. “No, we’re a team. I need you.”

“No you don’t,” his dad told him. “You’re strong, Brandon. You make good decisions.”

Brandon sobbed. “But I don’t. I’m always making mistakes. I got suspended from school. I ran away from you this morning.”

“I’m glad you did, Brandon. If you hadn’t gone off on your own, you’d be trapped up here with me right now.”

“I wish I was!” Brandon told him.

“No you don’t, Brandon.”

But he did. Brandon wished he was with his father, even if the floors were buckling and the fire was spreading and they couldn’t breathe. Even if his dad was dying. Brandon would rather die with his dad than live alone.

“We survive together. That’s what you always say,” Brandon said. He couldn’t see for his tears. “I can’t do this alone.”

“Yes you can, Brandon. You’re already becoming your own man. You can survive without me.”

Brandon put his elbows on the desk and covered his face with one hand. He didn’t want to be a man, or make his own decisions, or survive all by himself. He wanted his dad.

“The firemen are going to rescue you,” Brandon managed to say. “They’re going to make it up to the 93rd floor and put out the fire and come get you.”

But even as he said it, Brandon knew it wasn’t true. They both did. Brandon hadn’t even seen any firemen yet.

“Brandon, is that man still with you? The one you were with?”

“Richard,” Brandon said. He sniffed. “Yes.”

“Tell him I need to talk to him.”

Brandon didn’t want to let his father go, but he was crying so hard now he could barely talk. He held the phone out to Richard but couldn’t even say why.

Richard understood. He hung up the phone he’d been using to try to get through to his own family and took the receiver.

“This is Richard,” he said into the phone.

Brandon couldn’t hear what his father was saying, but Richard nodded.

“I’ll make sure he’s safe,” Richard said.

Brandon choked back another sob. This was all so stupid! His dad wasn’t going to die. He couldn’t. This wasn’t how people died. People didn’t die on sunny September mornings, going to work like they did every other day of their lives. People died when they were old, in hospital beds or old folks’ homes.

Brandon’s father kept talking. Richard closed his eyes and lowered his head.

“I understand,” Richard said at last. “I will. I promise.”

Richard held the phone back out to Brandon. “He needs to talk to you again,” he said.

Brandon took the phone, holding onto it with both hands like it was the most precious thing in the world.

“Brandon,” his father said, his voice faint. “I want you to promise to stay with Richard. At least for a few days, until he can figure things out.”

“No!” Brandon said, tears streaming down his face. “I want to stay with you!”

“Do what I tell you, Brandon. Promise me.”

Brandon could only blubber.

“Brandon, I love you,” his father told him. “And I’m proud of you. I always have been. I want you to know that. I know it hasn’t been easy since your mother died—”