The Lies That Bind(42)

“I need to meet her,” I say. “I need to talk to her. Face-to-face.”

Jasmine nods and says, “I know you do. I got her address. She lives in Brooklyn. You need answers. She needs answers, too, even though she may not know it yet.”

“Does she need answers even if he’s dead?” I say.

“Yes. Even if he’s dead,” she says, raising her chin, being strong for both of us, the way the best friends always are.

“But what’s the point?” I say, crumbling more with every passing second.

“The truth is the point,” Jasmine says. “The truth is always the point.”





Over the next several days, as I struggle to sleep, barely eat, and numbly write and revise various pieces about what everyone is now calling 9/11, I find myself slipping into a weird state of denial. It’s not that I forget for a single second that terrorists smashed planes into buildings, knocking them down, killing thousands of Americans from all walks of life. There’s no way to escape that, as it’s all anyone is talking about—whether on television, or in the newspapers, or out in the world. And even when people seemingly resume their normal pre-9/11 lives, riding the subway or strolling the avenues or sitting in diners and bars, the pain remains etched on everyone’s face, hanging in the air just like the lingering smoke and stench still wafting up from lower Manhattan.

But amid all of this, I can’t fully come to grips with the reality that Grant is among the dead, and more incredibly, that he left behind a wife—now a widow. Losing him in an ordinary fashion would be overwhelmingly heartbreaking, but facing the fact that our whole relationship was based on a lie is nothing short of unbearable. So I just don’t let myself go there.

I think Scottie intuits this—so he comes up with explanations I can cling to. Maybe they were divorced, and she just calls him her husband as shorthand. Maybe they married only so she could secure a green card—and they’re really just friends. Maybe she’s a stalker, suffering from delusions. I don’t really believe any of his far-fetched theories, but they enable me to put off calling the number for a bit longer.

    Until one morning, about a week later, when I finally bite the bullet and make myself call the number on the flyer. A woman answers on the first ring, and her soft voice fills me with so much agony that I nearly hang up. But I stay the course and force myself to say, “Hello. Is this Amy Smith?”

“Yes. This is she.”

My heart racing, I say, “My name is Cecily Gardner. I’m a reporter with The New York Mercury….I believe you talked to my colleague…?”

“Oh, yes,” she says. “I did.”

I pause, waiting for her to say something more, and when she doesn’t, I start stammering. “Um, have you, have you by chance…found him?…Your husband?” I say, instantly regretting my clumsy words, which sound more like I’m inquiring about a missing cat or dog.

“No,” she says. “We have not.”

As I’m wondering who the “we” is—his brother or someone else—she continues. “At this point, we’ve accepted he’s not coming back,” she says with a catch in her voice.

Her words catch me off guard, the finality of them, and I can manage only a very quiet “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she says.

Part of me wants to stop right here, and just wish her the best, but I know I can’t do that. At the same time, I can’t blurt out the whole truth. It’s just too cruel. So I clear my throat and say, “I wonder if you’d be open to meeting me? For a story I’m writing…?”

It’s not a total lie, as my editor has given all of us carte blanche to write features on any aspect of the attacks. But I still feel guilty about meeting under false pretenses—and being anything other than completely transparent in my reporting. At the least, it is a breach of journalistic ethics. At the most, it’s immoral.

    I hold my breath, awaiting her answer, praying she tells me no. That she’s not up to it. That she wants her privacy.

Instead she says yes, how about this afternoon?



* * *



—

Hours later, I am approaching Grant and Amy’s home in Park Slope, a serene, tree-lined neighborhood in Brooklyn that reminds me of Sesame Street. Checking the numbers on the buildings, I find their brownstone with bay windows and potted yellow chrysanthemums on both sides of the steps leading up to the double front doors. On the verge of hyperventilating, I climb the stairs, reach out, and ring the bell.

As I listen to the chime echo inside, followed by the high-pitched barking of a dog, I desperately wish I had taken Jasmine up on her offer to come with me. I’m not sure why I didn’t—other than a gut feeling that this was something I needed to do alone.

I hold my breath as one of the two doors swings open, and I see her for the first time. Although I expected Grant’s wife to be pretty, I didn’t expect her to be this gorgeous. She could easily be a model—the fashion-runway kind, with long legs and no hips. She has pale blue eyes and long baby-blond hair that remind me of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Gwyneth Paltrow. A long-haired dachshund yaps frantically at her feet, and as I glance down at it, I see that Amy’s toenails are painted a deep burgundy. The reality of this woman is a punch in the stomach.