On My Watch

by Virginia Buckingham

  It was late by the time we got home. We picked Jack up from day care, fed and bathed him and the baby, and got them into bed. David fell asleep while reading. I carefully extracted my hand from his and went downstairs.

  I’d avoided watching any TV in the last few days. I didn’t want to chance seeing the footage of that day replayed.

  I always saw it.

  I turned on the TV.

  Oh my God.

  It was not the second plane or the towers on fire. The camera was tight on the face of a woman. She was talking softly. Calmly. Only her eyes revealed the horror she was describing. They were open wide. Staring beyond the camera.

  She had gotten a call from her husband, she said. He was trapped in one of the towers.

  Trapped.

  I sat heavily on the floor, unable to move, unable to look away, to avert my eyes. The camera seemed to get closer to her face. Her eyes. They were looking right at me.

  Her lips were moving but it was her eyes that seemed to be talking to me: This hurts this hurts this hurts so badly please make my pain go away please make my pain go away.

  “He said he was going to try for the roof,” she told the interviewer. He said, “I love you,” and then the phone went dead.

  Her eyes seemed wider as she finished talking.

  The second plane.

  The explosion.

  The ball of fire.

  The black smoke.

  Her eyes.

  I curled into a fetal position on the floor in my dark house. I tried to make myself as small as I could. I squeezed my arms. Tucked my legs close under me. I rocked back and forth.

  “Make meaning. Find Joy. For Jack, Maddy, and Marianne.” That’s what I had written on the memorial board at BC that morning. Inspired by Andrea’s encouragement and Father Neenan’s ray of hope.

  The silent house absorbed my choking, keening sobs.

  Stop.

  I couldn’t.

  I was lost.

  Part II

  Chapter Twelve

  Missing

  November 2002—Marblehead

  “You don’t have to go,” David said.

  “Yes, I do,” I insisted.

  I had to see it. Ground Zero.

  “There’s nothing to see there,” my mother said in a last phone call before my trip, trying to dissuade me. “Why do you want to go?”

  No, why do I have to go, I silently corrected her.

  I felt like I was following an internal checklist. Visiting Ground Zero was near the top of the items I had to complete before I could move on from 9/11.

  “Move on.” That’s what everyone said it was time to do. David. My mother. My sisters. My friends. Even if they didn’t say it out loud, I could see it in their faces. I could hear it in their voices. “Move on.” “Put it behind you.”

  What did that even mean? How was moving on from something as horrific as 9/11 even possible?

  My brother Bill, who was a frequent visitor to New York City, offered to meet me at the site. Ann, my friend and neighbor, said she’d drive down with me.

  I didn’t ask David to go to the site of the Twin Towers with me. Nor did he offer. At the time, this didn’t strike either of us as odd. He’d stay with Jack and Maddy. Get them to day care. Bring them home at night. I had a friend and my brother coming. I didn’t need him.

  But, of course, I did.

  Anne MacFarlane told me she’d gone to New York with a group of families just a few weeks after the attacks. “First the bus took us to 9/11,” she said, referring to Ground Zero.

  This appellation did strike me as strange when she first said it—“took us to 9/11”?—but in retrospect, it seemed as fitting a name as “Ground Zero.” The common term for an area directly beneath a detonation began to be used in the media within hours of the attacks. But to Anne, perhaps, “ground zero” didn’t quite describe the totality of the horror. United 175 and American 11 weren’t “directly beneath the detonation.” The two flights in which 147 innocent people were instantly killed were the detonation.

  “Mayor Giuliani was speaking when I got there,” Anne added. She and her family stayed at the ceremony for just a few minutes, listening to the speeches. There, for the first time since she went to the Logan Hilton to meet with the Care Team on the actual day of the attacks, she was surrounded by people who had suffered the loss of a spouse, a parent, or a child, as she had. Yet, she found no comfort in the sad company. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee,” she said to her son Joe.

  “Then they took us to the pier,” Anne said, meaning the pier where the New York City medical examiner’s office had set up operations. “We sat in a big tent,” she continued, filling out forms and providing DNA samples. “They gave us an urn before we left.”

  “What was in it?” I asked.

  “Dirt,” she answered. “From 9/11.” She didn’t have to add, “In case nothing else is found.”

  If Anne can go there, so can I, I told myself.

  Anne, too, had been admonished to “move on,” I knew. She still had Marianne’s voice on her answering machine and got more than a few uncomfortable comments about it. I was even asked about it when I saw former colleagues from Logan. “Is Anne all right? Have you called her and heard the message?”

  Of course she’s not all right, I wanted to snap back. How could she be? Instead, I demurred and said I hadn’t talked to her in a while. It was as if there were some sort of grieving test we were both failing because a year later we still hadn’t “moved on.”

  New York will help me do it, I thought. That’s why I have to go.

  I didn’t think “go back,” though. I’d certainly been to New York City before. I grew up in nearby Connecticut, but as a child, New York City was more an idea—even a fantasy—to me than a real place. My mother would tell stories about taking my oldest four siblings there on day trips. Her description of the shops, the lights, the food, the smells fueled my imagined vision of a magical city.

  When the family grew to eight children, those regular trips became too daunting. But at about ten years old, I got an early Christmas present. My mom and I took a bus trip to Radio City Music Hall. There we saw the Rockettes perform and, later, stood in awe in front of the decorated Christmas windows at Macy’s. But other than that one trip, I developed my impressions of New York’s streetscapes from watching the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. On Thanksgiving mornings, my brother RJ and I would sit cross-legged on the floor in our pajamas. On the rug in front of us was a picnic of grapes, tangerines, and nuts. Cracking the nuts was as fun as eating them. We’d yell out the names of our favorite balloon characters as they floated down the streets. “Snoopy!” “Spider-Man!”

  Laughter. Excitement. Awe. Each of these colored in my perceived outline of New York’s skyline.

  And fear.

  Another vivid New York memory was boarding a train with my sister Lauren. She was a teenager then, eight years older than me. The train was supposed to take us from Washington, DC, where we’d been visiting relatives, to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Inadvertently, we were put on the wrong train and ended up in Penn Station. I was scared and so was Lauren, though she assumed a veneer of calm for my sake. While my father waited for us in a station in Connecticut, we were stranded in New York in the middle of the night.

  Facing my fear, I think. That’s what I am doing by going to Ground Zero.

  My nightly dreams began to reveal the fear that gripped me as the New York trip came closer.

  Images of the Rockettes kicking in unison morphed into a mass of people swelling and receding on the sidewalks around Ground Zero.

  Then they ran, terrified, past me.

  What if someone recognizes me? I thought to myself, panic rising. What if they blame me? I hid near a storefront. It was closed. The metal shutter covering the door was col
d and rough against my cheek as I pressed myself to it as closely as possible. A corner of a piece of loose-leaf paper scratched my arm. I inched my head back to see what it was. Wait. There were dozens of them. Faces. Handwriting. Names. “Missing” printed in block letters.

  Missing.

  I must have groaned in my sleep because David shook me gently on the shoulder. “Hon, are you okay?” I struggled to open my eyes, and I woke enough to whisper, “Yes.” But the reels of the dream continued to turn as I fell back to sleep.

  I was at Ground Zero. How did I get beyond the construction fence? I didn’t remember. I was breathing hard from the climb. I was at the top of the tallest crane. “I shouldn’t be here!” My heart pounded in fear.

  I looked down. Into the pit. “I don’t belong here!”

  “Join us. Join us.”

  Voices called to me from the darkness below. “You belong here,” they said. “Join us.”

  I took a gun out of my jacket. I placed the cold metal next to my temple. “I do belong here.”

  I was falling.

  My leg kicked against the quilt covering the bottom of the bed, a physical manifestation of trying to break my dream fall. I sat straight up, panting. “David, David,” I whispered urgently, shaking his shoulder. I couldn’t catch my breath. “David, if I don’t come home from New York, it’s not because I don’t want to. Please come find me. Please.”

  “I will,” he said, “it’s okay, shhhhh,” accepting without question my fevered plea and running his hand over my forehead like I was a small child until my breathing came easier and eventually I fell back asleep.

  The next evening

  We were leaving for New York City at dawn. Ann and I wanted to miss the morning commuter traffic. I put my suitcase in the trunk so I wouldn’t wake everyone by dragging it down the stairs in the morning. When I came back in the house, David said, “Jack’s still awake, and he wants you to come up.”

  “Hey, sweetie,” I said as I settled into the rocking chair and stroked his hair. “Want me to sing to you?”

  “Don’t go New York, Mama,” Jack said, reaching for me to take him into my lap. “Don’t go New York. What if can’t find way back home?”

  His speech was childlike but there was no mistaking his meaning. Had he overheard me telling my fears to David? Or was there some deeper instinct beyond his or my understanding that prompted him to try to keep his mother safe? I didn’t know the answer.

  I didn’t go.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “A Complete Comeback”

  January 1, 2003—Marblehead

  I shivered no matter how close I stood to the kitchen fireplace. I lifted the mug of steaming hot coffee to my lips and surveyed the room. Towels were still draped over shoulders. Fleece caps pulled over wet hair. Damp stains dotted sweatpants where they covered wet bathing suits. Ten of us hovered near the warm flames. I had lit the fire the second I came back in the door. Even so, I couldn’t get warm. Every nerve ending tingled. My feet were completely numb and covered in sand.

  Jumping in the freezing Atlantic Ocean to start the New Year wasn’t an original idea. But I was happy to claim it as a new tradition, as I toasted a fellow “polar bear” with my coffee mug.

  In a couple of weeks, I’d start a new job, too.

  Maddy was nine months old, and not going back to work wasn’t an option financially, nor did staying home for good really occur to me. Even with the personal and career-shattering ending at Massport, succeeding professionally was how I defined myself. Could I do so again? How would I even start? I knew Boston was in many ways a small town so I sought out the advice of a few business leaders and two people I knew at the Boston Globe.

  Before politics, even more than politics, I had always wanted to be a writer. Maybe that is how I start over, I hoped.

  ***

  “Congratulations on your new job, but I’m sorry about the letter.” Gina, who had begun taking care of Maddy while I started job hunting, handed her to me and set Maddy’s diaper bag down on the counter. I was soon to start as deputy editorial page editor at the Boston Herald.

  “What letter?” I asked, kissing Maddy’s soft cheek.

  “You didn’t see the story? It was in the Globe,” Gina answered.

  I hadn’t had time to read the papers that morning. I picked the Boston Globe up off the counter, and Gina pointed out the small news item. I was conscious of her watching me read it. I tried to keep my expression neutral when I saw what it was about. I swallowed hard. Stunned, I read the item again.

  The news item referenced a “letter” that, it turned out, was actually more like a petition. Forty of my soon-to-be-colleagues at the Boston Herald had signed it in protest of my hiring. The Globe item only excerpted a sentence or two, but I later read the entire text of the letter, which was sent to my soon-to-be-editor Rachelle Cohen, when it was leaked to the media critic Jim Romenesko:

  Dear Shelly:

  As you know, the newsroom staff deeply respects the “church/state” division between the news pages and the editorial/opinion pages. But the undersigned are compelled to register our grave dismay at the naming of Virginia Buckingham as chief editorial writer for the Herald.

  We acknowledge that the appointment is fully the province of you and the publisher. We are addressing this letter privately to you, and given that the decision is made we will accept it as professionals and move on. But we conclude that Buckingham’s appointment will be an embarrassment to the entire Herald staff for the following reasons:

  She has no serious journalism experience.

  She is familiar to most as a GOP political operative, with all the baggage that entails.

  Her role as head of Massport during the 9/11 calamity undermines her credibility on issues of Homeland Security, airport safety, and the scourge of patronage appointments in state government. (Please see attached clippings from the Herald.)

  Their third point hit me like a blow to the stomach. I stopped reading. Why? I wanted to demand. Who better to write about safety issues?

  Because three thousand people were killed on your watch. I silently answered my own question. A familiar sense of despair settled on me.

  The letter ended with this: “Buckingham’s presence will be confusing and troubling to readers who have followed our aggressive and critical-minded coverage of her political career and of Massachusetts state government. Her appointment reflects poorly on all of us who labor as professional news people.”

  I didn’t look at who signed it. I didn’t want to know. I was supposed to show up in the Herald newsroom in just a few days. I wondered why Shelly, my new editor, hadn’t told me about the letter. I didn’t know her well enough yet to understand that the second she’d gotten it she’d crumbled it into a ball and thrown it into the trash.

  The job offer from Shelly was unexpected. I was grocery shopping, literally picking up a bag of frozen peas, when my cell phone rang. “Ginny, it’s Shelly Cohen. I have a job opening and I wondered if you might be interested?”

  Interested? I nearly dropped the peas and yelped “Yes!” out loud.

  “Sure, I’d love to talk to you about that,” I answered, trying to keep my voice calm.

  “Then let’s have lunch. Sooner rather than later. How about Tuesday?”

  I had last seen Shelly a few months before at the State House when the official portraits of Weld and Cellucci were unveiled at an event I was unexpectedly, and also ironically, asked to emcee when Jane Swift was unable to attend at the last minute.

  “Tom Finneran?” I’d suggested when I was asked who should fill in for her, referring to the House speaker. “Bob Cordy?”—a justice on the state’s highest court. “They want you,” my friend Rob told me after running my ideas by Weld and Cellucci. There was an audible gasp in the Great Hall when I entered followed by the two governors—I hadn’t been back i
n the building at all since the day I’d testified before the transportation committee after 9/11.

  At the reception following the event, I asked Shelly if I could seek her advice about pursuing a writing career, as I had with other newspeople in town, a question she must have remembered when the position on her staff came open.

  From Politics to Paper, Controversy Pursues Her

  —Boston Globe, January 14, 2003

  January 14, 2003—One Herald Square, Boston

  I found an empty space in the already full parking lot behind the sprawling brick building housing the Boston Herald. The yellow box trucks with the blue lettering lined the row nearest the fence, already back from their early-morning deliveries.

  I took a last sip of coffee, inhaled a deep, calming breath, and glanced one more time at the headline in the morning’s Boston Globe: “Controversy Pursues Her.”

  “Her.”

  Me.

  The story, printed the day after I started, was about the anger inside the paper spurred by my hiring.

  “Hey, good morning,” a shop-floor manager called out as I walked down the hallway past the enormous printing presses, long quiet from last night’s run. His greeting reassured me somewhat that the “controversy” hadn’t fazed everyone at my new paper. Upstairs, I passed the “dead room,” having just learned that was what the space was called where old copies of the paper were stored—the most recent in piles on the floor, the oldest cataloged by topic and date and bound in enormous books. I’d like to look sometime for some of the coverage of when I was in the State House, I thought. I didn’t need to look up the coverage of me and 9/11. I knew it by heart.

  So why had I explored working for the Globe, and rejoiced at the job at the Herald if I thought their coverage of me and Massport was unfair? My first answer was that to be a professional writer was a lifelong dream. I used to tell colleagues, even when I was a young assistant press secretary, that “someday I’d like to be another Beverly Beckham,” a columnist who wrote on the Herald’s opinion pages. But I also realized in retrospect that both dissociation and denial played a big part. This was underscored when US District Court Judge Mark Wolf, a friend of mine and David’s, invited me for lunch in his chambers to discuss my job search. When I told him about the Herald’s offer, he sat back in his chair, clearly surprised, and exclaimed, “Wow, that’s a complete comeback.” I smiled broadly. I wanted a “complete comeback,” the promise inherent in his words, that I could regain who I once was, wrapping around me like a protective cocoon.