In Lyon, Michelle and Sabrina found a darkened lounge where they sat with friends, sipping mojitos, taking selfies, laughing, and swapping stories about, yes, the marathon, but about other things, too. They felt good. They wanted to dance. They asked the bartender if he could recommend a place.
“There’s a club called Boston Café,” he told them.
Silence.
But there was no question they would go. They walked the three or four blocks to the bar, located in the opulent Place des Terreaux. It’s a familiar Irish pub–type setting, with twentysomethings drinking cheap beer and listening to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” It was packed, and hot — not unlike Faneuil Hall pubs back home in Boston. Michelle, who struggles with large crowds, began to feel anxious and quickly hustled to a corner where she could sit, breathe, relax, and have a cold drink. Some of the others danced.
Someone asked the manager about the name. Are the owners from Boston? No, he says, they “just love Boston-style pubs.” The manager asked why the travelers were in Lyon. They told him.
“Hold on,” he said, hurrying away. He returned a few minutes later with an armful of souvenirs — a few sweatshirts and several hats, all with the Boston Café logo. The group tried to give him some money, but he refused, waving them away with a smile.
“You are our guests,” he said. “Thank you for coming in.”
Down the river, in Viviers, Jeff Bauman decided it was time for him to get off the ship for a while. He called for Carlos, and his friend pushed him down the gangplank and along the town’s cobblestone streets. They moved in the shadow of rows of leafless plane trees, similar to sycamores, that were planted by Napoleon’s army throughout France. A few others went along, and the group ducked into a tiny café just as the owner was about to close to run a few errands.
This, Carlos determined, would not stand. He charmed the owner, smilingly convincing the man that the café would be in good hands while he was gone, and promised to pay for each drink they took. The owner, who spoke little English, obliged, and nodded to the only French regular in the place to keep an eye on things. He then pointed to a cooler where a few twelve-packs of Heineken were being chilled and gave a thumbs-up to Carlos, who took over bartending duties. Members of the group hoisted their bottles in a toast to him. He returned the salute. “This is what this trip is supposed to be all about,” Carlos said. “People — survivors — getting to know one another, helping each other out, having fun.” He gave Jeff a pat on the back and handed him a Heineken.
The other survivors marveled at the relationship between Carlos and Jeff, at how Carlos took the younger man under his wing as a surrogate son of sorts, after saving his life. Every time Jeff left the ship, it was with Carlos pushing him. When Jeff went to bed, Carlos helped him. They ate every meal together. They were inseparable. They have even traveled to Costa Rica, and are frequently at events together back in Boston.
But it’s not just Jeff. The entire group owed a debt to Carlos. During the long trip, he acted as their shield when they needed protection. He was usually the first one to step up to the microphones to give the media the sound bites they needed so that the others would not have to. When they needed to talk, he listened intently and looked them deep in the eyes, often holding their hands or putting an arm around their shoulders. Because of his heroism that day, they felt safe around him. He gave them comfort. And in return, they gave him comfort.
The trip provided many of them with that rarest of opportunities: a chance to talk openly and freely about what has been haunting them for months. There was no judgment aboard the ship. No filters. Just catharsis. Just relief. And Carlos was an agent of this.
“Now we can talk to each other like we’ve known each other a long time,” he said. “There’s been a few moments where I shared my experience with some of them, and they help me out, to get it off my chest. And I’ve been listening to a few stories myself. I hope I help out as well. Like family. Like an old friend. It’s amazing how this works.”
Survivors also found strength in another man, seventy-one-year-old Bill White of Bolton, Massachusetts, who traveled on the cruise with his wife, Mary-Jo. The couple had attended the Boston Marathon in 2013 on a whim. They had taken an MBTA train into the city where they watched much of the race at the finish line before making their way to the Arlington Street Green Line station for the trip back to Bolton. They were just a few feet away from Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s bomb-laden backpack when it exploded. Mary-Jo suffered a broken wrist and shrapnel injuries, but her husband was hurt badly. Bill, a Vietnam veteran, suffered catastrophic wounds to his right leg — a leg doctors could not save. Fitted with a prosthetic and crutches, the elderly man had to learn to walk again. White refused any assistance during a number of exhaustive treks through the French countryside. Stoically, he would lift himself off the bus as the large group explored quaint villages such as Chateauneuf-du-Pape, where Pope John XXII, a noted wine lover, had erected a castle to keep a better watch on his grapes during the Avignon Papacy.
“I look at this darling man and I say to myself, ‘If he can do it, so can I,’ ” Michelle said of White. As she was with Jeff Bauman, Michelle was nervous about approaching Bill White, whom she had remembered from the hospital. She finally introduced herself after the trip, and the two now chat regularly.
The trip ended in Tarascon, but before everyone parted, one of the French tour guides addressed the group. “This has been the most memorable cruise we’ve ever been a part of,” she told them. “It has been such a sobering experience for our staff. We look at each of you and we see tremendous strength. Your strength has lifted each other, and it has lifted us as well.”
Examples of that strength abounded throughout the journey.
Rebekah Gregory, a twenty-six-year-old Texas mom who has had fifteen surgeries to repair severe damage to her leg and ankle, walked on crutches and in a cast from her latest surgery as she toured medieval castles and ancient churches with relatives, several of whom were also injured in the first explosion.
Michelle shrugged off the chafing and stinging of her skin grafts as they rubbed against the fabric of her clothes while she toured King Louis II of Anjou’s castle in Tarascon.
Victoria McGrath, a twenty-year-old Northeastern student originally from France who has had several surgeries to repair major leg injuries, had sometimes been forced to use a wheelchair, but in France, she embarked on daily walking excursions, hiking steep streets without aid and touring wine country with her friends.
In Viviers, Eric and Ann Whalley, a British couple in their mid-60s whose stroll from their home in Charlestown to the finish line on Marathon Monday landed them in the hospital with excruciating leg injuries and more than a dozen surgeries between them, carefully negotiated dirt paths and stone walkways to reach the top of a scenic plateau. There, the couple stood holding hands, gazing down over the countryside below.
Michelle L’Heureux and Sabrina Dello Russo hugged as they prepared to board separate buses to Marseille airport for their flights home. They pledged to get together in Boston, and they have, becoming close friends. Alan Starr, Carlos and Jeff, the Whites, and the Whalleys all said heartfelt goodbyes. Phone numbers and email addresses were exchanged; plans were made.
Jun Lu and his wife returned to China, alone. They did not get the answers they were looking for. No one on board could recall seeing their daughter at the finish line that day. But before they left the ship, Lu and his new friend Carlos embraced once more. “Please come visit us,” Lu said. “Please come to China.” Carlos accepted the offer without hesitation.
[24]
THE NEW NORMAL
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sits in isolation in a small prison cell at the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts, forty miles from the finish line on Boylston Street. He is cut off from the outside world. Communicating with other prisoners is strictly forbidden. Sunlight is rare. His only visitors are his sisters, a psychiatrist, and members of his legal team, which includes five attorneys, a te
am of paralegals, and two investigators.80 His lawyers are trying to keep him alive and away from lethal injection if and when he is found guilty. Their plan is to argue that he was seduced and manipulated by his older brother, Tamerlan, and that he acted under his “domination and control.”81 It is a defense the victims find laughable. To muddy the waters even more, his lawyers claim that the FBI had encouraged Tamerlan to become an informant to provide the Bureau with intelligence on Boston’s Chechen and Muslim communities.82 Dzhokhar’s lawyers argue that the alleged pressure from the FBI toward Tamerlan to get him to rat on his fellow Muslims may have added to his “increased paranoia and distress.”83
Federal prosecutors are looking to expose a different side of Dzhokhar. He was not a manipulated man-child, they argue, but a cold-blooded killer. Prosecutors claim that Tsarnaev has made “detrimental” statements during jailhouse visits with his sisters. This legal Ping-Pong game will continue to go back and forth through his trial. Meanwhile, Dzhokhar sits in his cell, living off meals of chicken and rice and allowed to make only one phone call, write only one letter each week. This is the life of an American teenager — an American teenager accused of killing and maiming his fellow citizens, including a young boy who should be enjoying the fourth grade.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is caged, but his victims are free — free to resume their lives in new and different ways. In January, Jeff Bauman and Carlos Arredondo were invited to attend President Obama’s State of the Union Address as special guests of the First Lady. A week later, they were asked to deliver the commencement address at Fisher College in Boston. Such opportunities could not have been imagined before April 15, 2013. The survivors had sacrificed their bodies and their minds, but they had also discovered a new strength in the well of their souls. Through their healing, they reclaimed their lives, tackled new challenges, and savored new experiences. Mery Daniel, Heather Abbott, and Adrienne Haslet-Davis found themselves backstage at a Beyoncé concert taking photos with the singing star. Members of the Collier family, the Richard family, and others were invited to Fenway Park for the 2014 home opener, where they presented World Series rings to the Red Sox. Survivors Colton Kilgore and Sabrina Dello Russo began training for their first Boston Marathon.
Michelle L’Heureux returned to the ski slopes, a place she feared she would never be able to return to. She was nervous but dug deep, thinking to herself that it was time to get back to some of the things she loved. But when the day arrived, she worried about her quad muscles in her injured leg, which hadn’t yet returned to full strength. Would they be strong enough to handle the turns and stops?
Michelle met her best friend Sare Largay at Blue Hills in Milton, Massachusetts. They entered the small lodge, got bundled up, and Michelle strapped into her ski boots for the first time since before she was injured. Ski boots are always stiff the first time you put them on at the beginning of a season, but for Michelle, the feeling was especially foreign — and a bit scary.
Carrying their skis, they walked to the lift line, put down their skis, and Michelle snapped in. It was something she’d done literally thousands of times in her life, but this time, it felt really good. She smiled, albeit a bit anxiously.
Overcoming her fears is a personal goal. And skiing this night was one of them.
Getting onto the chairlift is as natural as tying shoes to Michelle. But on this night, she was afraid. She couldn’t bring herself to get onto the chair. Partly she was afraid about her leg, but she was also scared of getting on the rickety, old, metal chairlift. She feared an accident.
It was the same fear she felt in Lyon, France, a month earlier when she got on a Ferris wheel with other survivors. She thought about the Ferris wheel and how she was scared then, too.
Nothing happened on the Ferris wheel. Nothing is going to happen now, she told herself.
Sare sensed her apprehension and asked the lift operator to slow it down for them. The chair slowly pulled up behind them, Michelle grabbed the rail, sat down, and they were off toward the top of the hill.
Nearing the top, Michelle was afraid to raise the bar, so Sare grabbed her arm, held it tight, and raised the bar.
They skied down the small off-ramp and onto the snow. Michelle stood at the top for a solid five minutes. She was terrified. Have I made a mistake? What if my leg gives out? What if I fall? Her mind was racing.
Michelle started to slide down the hill and made her first turn. It felt awkward, but she had done it hundreds of times before. I can do this, she thought.
She was shaky, but she made each turn, keeping her speed down. She gained confidence along the way. Her leg was definitely feeling weak, so she stopped about halfway down.
She rested a minute and then started up again. As she got toward the end of the short intermediate trail, she started picking up a bit too much speed, her weakened leg resisting her efforts to slow her body down.
She pulled it together, though, and slowed herself down, regaining control. She made it to the bottom. She smiled.
They did six runs that night, and it got easier each time. Her turns got sharper and she skied a bit more freely each time. But by the final run, Michelle’s leg was sore.
The friends snapped out of their skis and called it a night. Michelle was exhausted but was also exhilarated that she had returned to doing something she loved. It was another milestone for her as she resumed her “new normal.”
Since that first time back skiing, Michelle realized that she needed to pick up the work on rebuilding her quad muscles. She started doing wall sits, in which she crouches down with her back against a wall and her knees bent at a right angle. She also started doing more weight exercises with her legs at the gym — for she had in mind a promise she’d made to her Marathon Day “heroes” that she would run a 5k road race with them the day before the 2014 Boston Marathon.
Michelle, like many survivors, regularly gets together with her heroes. For Michelle, those are Andrew Daly, Joe McMenamy, and Lauren Blanda. All three are friends with a manager at Marathon Sports and were there the day of the bombing to watch the race.
Joe worked at Marathon Sports, while Lauren worked at nearby City Sports. Andrew, a running specialist for Adidas, sells to Marathon Sports. Lauren and Andrew have been dating for years and got engaged in January 2014.
Michelle credits the three with saving her life that day. As she lay on the floor of Marathon Sports, the three kept her calm while they tore T-shirts off the racks and made tourniquets to stop the bleeding from her gaping wounds.
After EMTs evacuated Michelle, Joe walked away from Marathon Sports covered in her blood. His pants were soaked with it. He, like most there that day, was in shock.
He called his mom and told her the whole experience had changed him. He now wanted to become a firefighter or an EMT. In February 2014, he took the exam to become a Boston firefighter.
One afternoon in January, Michelle was at the gym walking on the treadmill as usual. She was feeling unusually strong this day and, with her heroes in mind, she decided to try and run for the first time since the bombings.
OK, let’s see what I can do, she said to herself, increasing the speed.
She started to trot. Then she started to jog.
I’m running, she thought to herself.
It wasn’t easy, but she felt good. Her goal was to do a mile. Around the seventh-tenths mile mark, she started feeling weak. Her knee was aching from the pounding, and her wound was chafing. She wanted to quit.
She was getting annoyed with herself.
A year ago, you could have run a mile, but you just didn’t choose to, she thought to herself. Her anger rising, her thoughts turned to the terrorists.
You have to finish this mile.
She pictured the faces of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It’s something she does regularly, whenever her arm or leg injury is becoming an obstacle. It gives her motivation to finish.
If I finish this mile, I win, she told herself. She then mentally addressed the terrorists di
rectly: You’re not going to win this. You did this to my leg, but I’m going to prove you wrong and I’m going to finish.
She finished the mile. She let out a sigh of exhaustion, turned off the treadmill, and headed for the locker room. She was sore, but she was satisfied.
She won.
She went home, took some Motrin, and iced her knee. Surprisingly, she woke up the next morning with no pain. That day, she went back to the gym and ran one and a half miles.
Two weeks later, she and her boyfriend, Brian, who is training to run the marathon again, went to the gym together.
They ran side-by-side on treadmills. After a mile, Michelle told him, “One mile.” She wanted to stop.
“Keep going,” Brian encouraged her.
She got to a mile and a half.
“Keep going,” he said.
Her goal was to make it to two miles. She made it.
“Woo-hoo!” she said, letting out a small yell. People working out turned around and looked at her awkwardly.
She didn’t care. She was another step closer toward being able to run the 5k race with her heroes.
[25]
FROM FINISH LINE TO FINISH LINE
Jun Lu and his wife stood in front of Forum one year to the day after losing their daughter, Lingzi. Boylston Street was quiet. Jun Lu stared down at the sidewalk and must have wondered, as all parents would, whether his child had experienced pain as she was dying or whether the end had come quickly, mercifully. The Lus were joined on this dreary morning, April 15, 2014, by Bill and Denise Richard and their children, Jane and Henry, as well as the family of Krystle Campbell. They nodded their heads as Cardinal Sean O’Malley offered a short prayer. Bill Richard wiped away tears as Jane and Henry joined Boston’s new mayor, Marty Walsh, in placing a wreath at the site. Another wreath was laid a block down Boylston Street in front of Marathon Sports. An honor guard made up of Boston police, Boston firefighters, Watertown police, and state troopers stood at attention next to the wreaths while bagpipes solemnly wailed “Amazing Grace.”
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