The Girl He Used to Know(70)
We wait some more.
* * *
Janice calls again. “Have you heard from him?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Clay says lots of people had to find shelter with friends, even strangers. The phone lines are just … they’re still a mess.”
“That’s what Will said. He checked in half an hour ago. Took him a while to get through. I’m sure Jonathan will call.” My voice sounds oddly flat and unconvincing, even to my own ears.
“I’m sorry, Annika.” She is silent for a few moments. “I wish we could wait this out together and I could comfort you.”
She may get her wish, because if I don’t hear from Jonathan soon, the next time she calls, I’m going to tell her what I’ve decided to do.
* * *
Jonathan does not call. It’s nearly eight o’clock at night by then. When I break the news to my parents that I’m going to drive to Hoboken, New Jersey, and then go to Ground Zero to find Jonathan myself, they protest. Loudly and rather emphatically. I don’t blame them. It’s an outlandish, foolhardy plan. Surely they don’t believe I’m even capable of it, and why would they? There are lots of things no one thinks I’m capable of, and for the most part, they would be right. But in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” This is the hottest water I’ve ever been in. I’m scared, and driving to Hoboken seems impossible.
But I’m going to do it anyway.
“Then what will you do?” my mom asks.
“Janice will help me. We’ll look for Jonathan. We’ll check all the hospitals. We’ll put up signs.” I have gleaned from the news broadcasts and newspaper articles that this is what people are doing. They’re holding candlelight vigils and they’re trading information and they’re helping one another.
“I can’t go with you. I can’t leave your dad, and he can’t be in a car that long right now.”
“Yes, I can,” my dad says, but it would be too painful for him. He doesn’t even look comfortable sitting on the couch. And she will not leave him by himself.
“I’m not asking you to go with me. I don’t want you to go with me.” That’s a straight-up lie, because I have no idea if I have the ability to do this. Even more important than ability is whether or not I have the courage. This revelation makes me feel ashamed. I’m a grown woman, and it’s time to prove—if not to everyone else then at least to myself—that I can do things on my own. Janice said that Jonathan needs me to step up, to be the kind of person he can depend on not to retreat when things get rough. This time, I won’t hide in my childhood bed hoping the world will right itself. Jonathan would do anything to help me, but now he’s the one who needs help, and I’m going to dig deep and be the one to give it to him.
Janice reacts even more strongly than my parents when I tell her. “I don’t think you have any idea what it’s like here. Clay said the footage on TV can’t remotely compare to what he saw with his own eyes. We won’t be able to get anywhere near Ground Zero unless we can prove we live in the neighborhood. And I’m not even sure that’s enough.”
“What if Jonathan is hurt? What if he’s at the hospital but for some reason he can’t speak.” I don’t like to think about what those reasons might be. I tell myself that his voice might be too hoarse from the smoke and dust and it’s given him laryngitis and that’s why he hasn’t called. “He has no one. No siblings, no parents. No one is looking for him but me.”
“Annika.” She sounds tired.
“His name is on the list. He got out.”
“What if his name is there by mistake?”
“Why would it be there by mistake? His boss was supposed to put down the names of everyone who got out and email it to the Chicago office, and that’s what he did. He wouldn’t lie about something like that.” Janice doesn’t say anything. “If I can get there, will you help me?”
“Of course I will.”
Before we hang up, I tell her when to expect me and that I’ll have my cell phone so I can call her from the road. “Be careful,” she says.
My mom’s subsequent calls to the Chicago office go unanswered. The phone just rings and rings now. “I can’t blame them,” she says. “They must be terribly busy.”
Jonathan’s company has set up a hotline and also a command center of sorts at a hotel. Family members of missing employees have been instructed to go there.
I want to go there.
40
Annika
SEPTEMBER 13, 2001
Because there is a ban on airline travel, I’m not the only one who’s decided they will rent a car to get where they need to go. The line at Hertz is thirty-seven people deep. Some of them curse and drop out, walking away rolling their carry-on luggage behind them, wheels thumping out the door and down the curb. I want to run after them and ask where they’re going, because maybe they know of some shorter line or magic supply of cars I haven’t thought of. But I don’t and now there are only twenty-nine customers in front of me, and that makes me feel a little better. I will wait as long as I have to and then I will drive straight to Hoboken using the directions my mom printed out for me using something called MapQuest. Clay and Natalia will stay home while Janice and I go into the city to find Jonathan.