by Hannah Paige
But her question had already been answered.
Rick nodded, “What I know is that Will is a special kid. And not just the kind of ‘special’ kid that makes Honor Roll or builds their own computers before they’re in middle school. I mean he could connect with you, he knew stuff about you, knew how to get inside your head and help you with things that you didn’t even know you needed help with. Maybe—”
“No,” April stopped him there and caught her voice coming out a little too harsh, but mostly afraid.
“Maybe he just wanted you to hear your own advice.”
“Rick, I don’t even know where my mother is. I haven’t seen her in twenty-four years. I probably wouldn’t even recognize her and that’s if I found her at all.”
He climbed off the bed and took both of her shoulders. How had he known that I needed to be braced up? April thought. Because he knows this emotion. He knows when a person is about to fall down. Because he’s been on the bottom. This isn’t foreign to him, like it is to me.
“April, I think it’s time we find Will again. Something tells me that he knows where your mom is.”
But before either one of them could react to Rick’s order, someone knocked at April’s door. April couldn’t move. She didn’t want to see Ed, or her dad, or the UPS guy who was probably just delivering a harmless package. She didn’t want to see anyone, not like this.
Rick left her there and she heard him open the front door. “Lena? What are you doing here?” his voice echoed the short distance down to her room.
“Rick! Are you all right? This was delivered to my door this morning, I got here as soon as I could,” a woman’s voice carried through the bungalow.
“What are you talking about? What is this? A relapse? Lena, no, I’m fine. I haven’t had anything to drink. Where did you get this?”
“A boy delivered it to me this morning. First, I was confused and I told him to leave, but then I read that you’d had a relapse and that you needed help and I could find you here. I had to come.”
April shot out of her bedroom doorway where she had been listening, “A boy?”
That’s what she meant to say, but she only got out, “A b—” before clasping both hands over her mouth.
She’d been wrong. Even after twenty-four years, she did recognize her mom. She was grayer, shorter, and a little plumper, maybe, but it was her, clear as day. April recognized her just fine.
“April?” she breathed.
“You know her?” Rick asked, closing the door as the grey-haired woman—with her hair pulled up into a loose ponytail—stepped inside the house.
“Of—”
April heard the catch in her mom’s voice.
“Of course I know her. I’d know my own daughter anywhere.”
April felt stuck in place. She’d imagined this moment a thousand times, but it still didn’t make it any easier or simpler. Because this didn’t feel like any of the scenarios she had imagined in her mind. In one scenario, April had hurled objects at her mom’s head, screamed at her for never reaching out to April in all this time. In another, she groveled at her mother’s feet, begging for forgiveness, while knowing that nothing she would ever do would make it right. In her mind, the possibilities for outcomes were endless because April wasn’t staring her mother right in the eyes while imagining them. It’s easy to come up with ideas for a relationship resolution when you never believe you’ll see the one you need to make up with again.
“You…You’re so beautiful.”
April thought she saw Rick flinch at the words and swore she saw tears catch in his eyes, but he rubbed at them before she could see. Then again, she couldn’t be sure. She wasn’t really paying attention to him. She was looking at her mom. She was looking at the short distance between them, only a few feet: a measly length compared to how far she had felt from her in the past. She’d thought that she’d never be this close to her mother again. Words had a way of disorienting the real space between two people; time too.
Twenty-four years and all those cruel words she had thrown at her mom when she’d been eighteen.
And now all she wanted to do was hug her. So she did. At first, April didn’t say anything and neither did her mom. But April felt angelic, firm, but gentle, hands—a combination that could only be possessed by the moms in this world—stroke her hair. And that one moment, that one silent moment was all that was needed in the warm June morning. One moment.
“It’s alright, April. I forgive you, I forgive you, my baby girl.”
April didn’t lift her head from the cocoon of her mom’s chest, “Why? How?”
“Oh, I can give you lots of reasons why. But it doesn’t matter. You are my daughter and I could never, ever, no matter what, keep you out of my heart.”
Two days later, April was with Rick again, this time in New Jersey. He had shown her his house, the library where he attended his weekly AA meetings, and they’d stopped for lunch at a pub on Main street. Rick had convinced April to come with him on the tour to keep her mind occupied. She had insisted on trying to find the intriguing little boy who had somehow found her mom, but Rick told her that she shouldn’t bother. That this wasn’t the kind of kid she could find again. He would find her. April believed Rick. Of course she did, he was a faithful person. But she wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of the help-chain and didn’t like to leave thank-yous unsaid.
“No,” she shook her head, “I haven’t always worked at the shelter. I actually have a degree in communications. My employers say I’m far overqualified for my job.” She laughed, bumping against Rick, “But my plan was to get the degree and become a 911 operator.”
She saw Rick’s eyes widen and she nodded her head, keeping her expression loose, lips parted in a ready position to smile. “I know. It was insane. My brother and his wife, Pam…” Her lips pressed together at the memory of her. April had reluctantly relinquished her attempts to contact her, to help her through the loss of Darin. Pam hadn’t wanted her help and had made that unmistakably clear to April. She hadn’t talked to her in years, but she had noticed that her most recent payments to keep Pam’s apartment had been forwarded back to her.
She shook her head, plastering on her confidence like a shield, “They tried to talk me out of it. Well, Pam didn’t, not really. She was…she was open to the idea. She was always supportive like that, a little timidly so, like she didn’t want to say the wrong thing, but I appreciated her all the same. Pam was like that, always good. But Darin, he would not let me hear the end of it. He tried to warn me that I was going to get hurt, crushed from listening to someone die over the phone. And he’d been right, after all. He’d been right.”
Rick shifted to hang his arm over the top of the booth so that his fingers just grazed April’s blouse. “When I got back from active duty, I knew a couple of guys who would tell me that they still heard the voices. It drove them insane, the screams and the cries, not just of people that they had killed, but the ones that watched. It was the voices inside their own heads that drove some of them to shutting themselves down for good.” He seemed to disappear for a second and April wondered what kinds of voices Rick heard in his own head and if she could maybe, just maybe, help quiet them. “Whatever you heard, whoever, I mean. It wasn’t your fault.”
April nodded, “Yeah, I know that. I also know that I got a really, pardon my language, shitty deal for a first day. It was a Tuesday.”
He knew what day she was talking about. It was a universal understanding among those that had been touched by that day.
They knew.
“April, I’m so sorry, I—”
“It’s okay, it’s fine. I’m fine. And,” she sat up, ramming down the awful, painful ashes of sadness that welled up inside her when she thought of JJ, of the girl that she’d heard die. She rammed them down with her rod spun together with silver linings. She always found one in moments of instability. “I actually got to meet the girl’s brother the other day. His name was Ian. He told me about h
er, a little, that is. He told me how great of a person she was, how important family was to her. I guess I was meant to meet her, in some way, maybe. I wonder how he’s doing.”
“You’ll be happy to know that Ian is doing swimmingly,” a voice piped up from one of the bar stools. A blonde boy seated next to a tall, pale, blonde-haired woman who had her back to April and Rick, spun around to face the two of them.
“You,” April sighed.
William Thomas Clark gave her his best charming smile, “So you remember me?”
“You know I do. You tricked me, William Thomas Clark.”
He hopped off the stool and April noticed his ratty tennis shoes, falling apart, barely clinging to his feet with scraggly seams, “Did I?”
“You pretended to get upset over how your mom would be angry at you for running away, just so that I could hear my own advice, so that I could remind myself that moms forgive. But you didn’t need my help, you didn’t need anyone’s. Why did you do that? Did you do the same thing for Rick?”
He shifted his eyes to Rick and hopped onto the booth seat across from the two of them. “Mr. Griffin? No, he required a different tactic to help him. But you, April May June, you don’t accept help too well, do you?” He winked at her and, absurdly enough, she felt herself blushing in front of the little boy. “You give help. The only way that I could have helped you was to make you feel like I was the vulnerable one. What’s more vulnerable than a lost child?”
“How did you find us?” April asked, completely flabbergasted and breathless from the boy’s wisdom.
He looked to Rick. April watched them exchange boyish grins, like the two of them shared an unbreakable bond, one that April, and probably anyone else, was never going to be able to understand.
“I’ve got a lot of friends, April May June. A lot of friends looking out for a lot of people. That’s how I knew about your mom, about you, about Rick, Ian, about lots of people.” He started to slide off the booth when April jumped from her seat and grabbed his hand.
“Wait!” she had no idea what she would have said that afternoon, had she not caught a glimpse of a pretty, young brunette woman who had appeared on the boy’s former bar stool. She was giggling away, sipping on a margarita. She turned around and looked April right in the eye, winked at her, and then was gone.
April let go of William Thomas Clark’s hand and sat back against Rick, speechless.
“Like I said, April May June, lots of friends.”
August 1, 2011
April hardly checked her mail, so when she opened her private box at the post office down the street from her house, she wasn’t surprised to see it completely stuffed. She was carrying it home, was almost to her driveway, when her cell phone rang. She crammed her hand into her pocket and withdrew it, seeing Rick’s name on the screen, accompanied by a picture of the two of them at Ellis Island—taken against his protests a few weeks ago.
“Hey I—”
For the first time Rick beat her to the punch, “Did you get one?”
April unlocked her front door, pushing it closed once more with her foot as soon as she was inside. She dropped the pile of mail on her kitchen table. “Get one what?”
“A phone call from Naomi. Or maybe a letter?”
Personally, April hated Naomi and she hadn’t met her yet. She’d been contacted by her, via Rick, and asked to participate in this documentary that was set to be released next month along with the new memorial being opened. She was all secrets, very vague about the all-important Project Survivor Tree, how it came together, how she found people, why she was doing it, and who was participating in it. When April asked Rick if he knew anything more about her or the project, he was no help. Naomi seemed to keep everyone in the dark, with her hand on the light switch until she deemed you important enough to flick it on for a moment. Those kinds of people just made April’s skin crawl.
“A phone call? Definitely not, but maybe a letter. Hold on, I just got my mail.” She scrunched the phone into her shoulder, holding it in place against her ear, while she started leafing through the pile of—mostly junk—mail, “What’s this about?”
“It’s about our testimonies, she’s calling them our steps or lessons, goals. She switches around with her words in the letter. She wants us to have them written and completed by the end of the week. You’ll see.”
“Got it,” April said, plucking a symmetrical envelope from the pile and slitting her finger through it. She scanned over it, keeping Rick on the line.
Dear April,
I know we have not met in person yet, and I know that bothers you. But you will be pleased to hear that this project is almost over. When it is, and you, along with the other participants in this honorable project, have seen the finished product, then you will get the chance to see me. Until then, it is essential that I stay out of the picture so that we may keep this subject centered around who and what is important: all of you that have been changed by that day, almost ten years ago, and, of course, your stories. The film will have several components, recounting the event from different viewpoints, but my personal favorite section, what I have been looking forward to filming, is almost upon us: the testimonies. This is the chance for each and every one of you, the willing participants, to share your experience: how you have been altered, for better or for worse, by the events that occurred on September 11th, 2001. I want you to make them as personal as you can because people need to hear you. As you have been reminded several times in this process, it has been my goal to connect as many people as I can by making this film. I want to make it clear to the viewers that we all share something: experiences, relationships, whatever the case may be.
To accomplish that, it is imperative that you all have your own chance to talk directly to the camera, to those that have been hurt and have come out tougher because of that day. We will be holding a closed studio day next week, once you have all written your testimonials. Each one of you will have your own time slot to make this personal situation as comfortable as possible. I will leave a cameraman in the studio, but he will be the only one there, and only to operate the camera. I, nor any of the other participants, will see your story until the film is released. I wish you luck in your writing endeavor and I implore you to remember that your story matters. The lessons you have learned, the goals you have achieved, that have made you the person you have become all matter. And everyone is listening.
September 11, 2011
William Thomas Clark
I stood in the crowd, surrounded by people. The September sun beat down on us, baking the thousands of people gathered in New York City on a low temperature, low and slow. I could hear the giant American flag galloping in the wind as current soldiers held it out in memorial for those that were lost ten years ago, to the day. I stood near enough to hear the names being read off a long list, a list of three thousand, but not too close to be seen by the weeping families. The sense of community that the teary-eyed parents, spouses, children, friends, and brief, impacted acquaintances felt was more important today, than any other day of the year.
I saw the beautiful brunette standing in a cluster of women, most of them around her age, some older, some younger. Her hair had grown out, but only slightly, grazing her collarbone now. It fluttered in the breeze. She was handed a folded flag, along with several of the other women closest to her. I could see the glimmer of stale tears in her eyes, but no fresh ones yet.
Good for her, I thought.
A shorter blonde woman stood near her, a few feet behind. She was there for the fallen responders, the ones that made helping others their profession. But she was also there for the civilians. She kept a watchful eye on her sister-in-law, not knowing how much the damaged woman in front of her had changed. She didn’t know that she would have welcomed the charismatic woman’s helping hand then. She didn’t know that her beloved family member was well enough to accept love, to look into the eyes that so closely resembled her late husband’s, but she would soon.
; A man in a wheelchair, loved by his closest friends and cherished by his daughter, was on one side of her. One of his hands, calloused and scarred by some of life’s worst trials, held the blonde’s like a giant might hold a teacup: gingerly, so as not to crush the tiny glassware.
On the woman’s other side there stood a man I have grown quite fond of. If I had known my father, I would have hoped for him to be as good as this man. The man who knew sadness like no one else. The man who chose the living antithesis of himself for his companion, because she was, slowly but surely, teaching him to smile; her optimism was contagious, if nothing else. They shared their knowledge with one another, letting each other feel the emotions that they had inhibited from themselves for many years. To the man in the wheelchair, he was known as a former soldier; to the woman grasping his hand, he was a lover; to me, he was a friend. He was a slow learner, but he was trying. They all were.
None of them saw the tall, gangly doctor, with disheveled, curly, black hair, like charred pencil springs coiling out of his head, standing not ten yards away. He was with the civilians. He didn’t get a folded-up flag, but he was listening for the names, as was I. And when he heard one of the names for which he listened, a single tear rolled down his cheek. Of course, when the second name came and yet another tear joined the first on his face, he didn’t notice that the blonde woman also let herself flinch, like she’d been hit with a bullet from far away, when she heard the woman’s name.
People never notice the connections they have with others in their times of grief, even though that’s when the acknowledgment is most needed. It’s not until after the fact, that connections between us and people we never would have noticed become clear.
None of them saw me. But most people don’t see a nine—make that ten, as of today—year-old boy. Especially one with dirty, old shoes, one who doesn’t speak to those who don’t need his help.