The Girl He Used to Know(73)
“You can’t take risks like that.”
“Everything turned out fine.” My mom probably thinks she was right and I’m not capable of making a trip like this on my own without someone to guide me and keep me safe. But someday they’ll be gone, and I’ll have to live my life without their guidance. Maybe without Jonathan’s, although that thought fills me with immeasurable pain and sadness. This road trip isn’t my first or only attempt at independence, but it’s an important step toward laying down a foundation for the years to come. And I’m not so dense that I don’t know that most people are younger than thirty-two when they achieve it.
I’ve lagged behind everyone my whole life, so why would my adulthood be any different?
“I spoke to Janice. She’s been frantic with worry because she couldn’t reach you on your cell phone. I’ll call her and let her know you’re okay. Do you know what time you’ll reach Hoboken?”
“I’m going to leave here by nine. Tell her I’ll call her right before I get back on the road.”
“Okay.” My mom sounds really tired.
“I need to go to bed,” I say.
“I’m so happy you’re safe. Don’t pick up anyone else. Please be careful and call me the minute you arrive at Janice’s.”
“I will. Bye.”
There’s a knock at the door, and when I open it, Ray is standing there, alone. “Henry’s asleep. I locked the door in case he wakes up and tries to leave.”
I’m not sure what this means. Am I supposed to invite him in? I don’t want to. I’m too tired.
“I just wanted to thank you.”
“Oh. You’re welcome.”
“Annika. Listen to me. Don’t pick up anyone else, okay? You have a wonderful heart and your kindness astounds me. But what you did was very dangerous and there are people in this world who would not have cared about your safety.”
“I know that.” I mean, I know that now.
“Could I have your address? I’ll pay you back when I get on my feet.”
I tear a page from the notepad on the dresser and write it down for him.
He takes the piece of paper, folds it, and puts it in his pocket. “I better get back to Henry. I hope you find your boyfriend. No one deserves a miracle more than you.”
41
Annika
SEPTEMBER 14, 2001
I leave the hotel an hour later than I planned, because I was so exhausted I somehow shut off the alarm and fell back asleep, although I have no memory of it.
It’s hard to follow the MapQuest directions, because I don’t want to take my eyes off the road and Janice’s urban neighborhood has a lot of streets. She’s waiting for me in the driveway when I pull in, Natalia on her hip.
“Thank God,” she says when I get out of the car.
“I did it,” I say. “No one thought I could, but here I am.”
Janice squeezes me tight and says, “Yes. Here you are.”
* * *
Clay and Natalia accompany us as far as they can, and then Janice and I head toward lower Manhattan on foot. Clay made us take surgical masks, and as we draw as close to Ground Zero as they’ll let us, which isn’t really close at all, I finally understand why. The smell of acrid smoke is overpowering, and ash fills the air like we’re walking around near some kind of smoldering urban volcano. It coats our skin and hair, and I cough uncontrollably. Soldiers stand on corners with assault rifles slung over their shoulders. There are shrines and missing-person posters. We make the rounds of the hospitals closest to the World Trade Center, but we don’t find Jonathan and I blink back tears because I’ve made it too far to just give up now.
We go uptown, to the hotel where Jonathan’s company has set up an emergency center in the grand ballroom on the second floor. No one is wearing a tuxedo or fancy gown, but there are bottles of water and soft drinks in buckets on buffet tables; waiters circulate with trays of sandwiches no one wants. The round tables for eight are all numbered, and it takes me a moment to realize these are the floor numbers where the missing had been seen last.
“Do you know what floor he was on?” Janice asks.
“No.” We pick a table at random and introduce ourselves to the people standing next to it. We share what we know, which isn’t much, and in return we receive snippets of information, most of it things we already know: They tried to leave the building. They went down, were forced back up. A man from New Hampshire draws a diagram for us on a paper napkin showing the possible routes they could have taken. “If someone is strong, they could have survived if they made it low enough. We can’t give up hope.”
The people in this room are wearing the same clothes they’ve worn for days and many of them have shadows under their eyes. Jonathan’s company has lost approximately seven hundred of its employees. We are just two out of hundreds, all despondent and desperate for information.
A long table near the front of the room holds information packets. There are phone numbers for surrounding hospitals, and we check them against the list Janice typed up, making sure that we’ve been to them all. We stand in line to fill out a missing-person report; it’s eight pages thick. Unfortunately, Jonathan has very few unique identification markers. No tattoos, piercings, or facial hair that will separate him from all the other dark-haired, blue-eyed clean-shaven men who shared his fate. He does have a scar on his knee from a torn ACL he suffered during his sophomore year of college when he went skiing, but it’s a common injury and is hardly worth mentioning. I list it anyway.