Karma Day 3

“Perhaps God spared Michael’s life. He might still be stuck in traffic on his way to Reagan National.” Marvelette had murmured to me just before the first building came down in a roar of dust and debris. But I think we both knew it was an empty hope. There was no denying what the television screen had shown going on at the Pentagon and early reports were that no one aboard the plane had survived the impact.

We both gasped, as shocking as all we’d seen before that moment the sight of the first building collapsing was too much, impossible even. How could anything built so large and sturdy simply turn into dust and disappear? I cried even louder, feeling a deep pain for those watching their loved ones die this day on television. You could almost hear the souls crying out in pain to God.

At some point between the collapse of buildings one and two people from my church started showing up, starting with my minister, Pastor Waverly. He lived just down the road in the next small town, really more like a wide spot on the twisted barely paved road named Twylands Mill. He arrived and wrapped me in a tight hug before asking how I was.

The house filled quickly, ladies from the church, a few deacons and others. The grapevine in our little community was notorious for word spreading fast. People milled around, someone making coffee and someone else making sandwiches while I continued to sit, transfixed by the news coverage and unable to let go of Marveletta. I didn’t notice when my tall basket of laundry got knocked over or when others started to step on it. Only many hours later, when I returned to the abandoned house did I notice the tracked carpet of white cotton garments containing dirty shoeprints across the den and wonder why no one simply picked up the clothes.

We watched the coverage with grim faces and I jumped a foot every time the phone rang, hoping against hope it was Michael. But it never was. It was friends and relatives from far away calling to find out if we had survived. To people in other states the Pentagon had no real fixed address in relationship to anything else, just Washington DC. Hard to explain it wasn’t even in DC proper but on the outskirts in Virginia.

Over and over again I repeated that I hadn’t heard from Michael but I was safe at home. I couldn’t even wrap my brain around what had happened to tell any of the callers that it was a certainty that Michael had perished in the plane that hit the Pentagon.

Eventually some wise lady from Plover Creek realized that I was getting wound up from having to explain I knew nothing over and over and she started answering the phone, fielding all inquiries while I sat on the sofa, hypnotized by the human devastation before me on the small screen. I wept at the sight of all the still ashy faces of the people silently filing out of lower Manhattan on foot. I cried at the stories coming in of the bravery exhibited by the first responders.

But I was finally called away to the phone again around two o’clock by the principal of Jay’s school, Pastor John Morgan. He wanted to know if we were safe and if he needed to hold Jay back for late pickup. He knew only that Michael worked in the city and he informed me that he was calling all the parents of the students where one of the parents worked in the city to make sure someone was around to talk to the child about what had happened.

He stumbled over his words more awkwardly than usual. I could just see him sitting in his large office surrounded by books and the series of paintings depicting the stations of the cross that guarded his walls. I’m sure his hair was it’s usual longish floppy mess, touching the collar and tousled and he sported an expression of pain on his face to match the pain reflected constantly in his grey eyes.


I found myself sharply questioning the Reverend as to how my child would have heard of today’s tragedies and he erred and umed for a few moments before telling me that several of the teachers had heard the news from friends and relatives. Before he knew what had happened most of the classes at Ryland Memorial School had switched on the classroom televisions and started watching the coverage.

I dropped the phone and sagged to the floor wailing. I remember thinking how much it hurt knowing that the sense of safety and security my child had grown up in without any fear of war or terrorism had been terribly altered in one short morning. Images of bomb drills and emergency drills carried out faithfully at my own childhood school, St Agnes of the Blessed Vision danced before my eyes and I curled into a ball like a frightened child to weep even louder.

As people rushed to try and coax me off the floor and hand me a box of tissues I could hear someone telling Pastor Morgan that my husband, Jay’s father, had been on the plane striking the Pentagon. I can imagine Pastor Morgan’s gasp, perhaps he even turned a little red, followed by his profuse apologies and offered prayers for our family.

When my friend Hannah hung up the receiver she told me that Pastor Morgan said he would be bringing Jay home himself directly. Apparently Jay had heard enough from the news reports to realize his father had probably been on American Airlines Flight 77. He was frightening, crying, demanding answers. Pastor Morgan thought Jay needed to see his mother as quickly as possible but said he felt I would be too distraught to go to the school.

Everyone kept talking at me and all I wanted was to be completely left alone. I wanted everyone to leave. I craved my bed, my quiet bedroom at the top of the stairs, to lie on top of the antique quilts and stare undisturbed at the white washed walls. Just to be allowed to pretend this was nothing more than a bad dream. As long as everyone pressed me to eat, or make a decision as to what I felt like needed to be done I couldn’t deny this reality.

“I don’t know, I don’t know” I kept replying to the different enquiries as to what I thought I needed to do. I was petrified if I left the house I would miss a call from the airlines telling me that Michael had been bumped to another flight, or the police might stop in to tell me that they’d made identification of Michael’s body from the plane crash. I just didn’t know.