“I was just crossing Boren,” he said, repeating to Dana McAuliffe exactly what he had told the police. “The laurel bushes were between me and the clinic, but I heard what sounded like, well, sort of a sonic boom—very loud. And then the ground was shaking under me so hard I could barely stand. I grabbed hold of the gate, and stuff started flying in all directions. The next thing I knew, I was inside the fence, on the lawn, and let me tell you, it was total chaos.”
“I can only imagine,” Dana responded, thinking how a meeting run long had more than likely saved his life.
“The police asked me if I’d seen anybody who looked suspicious, someone who didn’t belong at the clinic, or who was heading away from the scene rather than toward it, but I really couldn’t help them. I wasn’t thinking about that at the time.”
“Maybe in a few days,” she suggested, “something you may not even realize you noticed will come back to you.”
He looked at her with hollow eyes. “What kind of crazy people would blow up a bunch of innocent children like that, not to mention mothers with their newborn babies? What kind of world are we living in, anyway? And if this is what it is, why would anyone want to bring new life into it?”
“Sometimes, I wonder,” Dana murmured.
“The police also asked if I knew of anybody who had a grudge against me or against Hill House. I really can’t bring myself to believe that the Jensens would’ve had anything to do with this, but I had to tell them.”
“Of course you did,” she assured him. “Don’t worry. If they’re not involved, there’s no harm done.”
“They’re good people,” he said. “I don’t want them to get hurt by this.”
“I’ll talk to their attorney,” Dana promised. “Give him a heads-up. He’ll explain to the Jensens that you didn’t have a choice. It’ll be all right.”
Marilyn Korba huddled in the tiny waiting room just inside the second-floor Intensive Care Unit at the Harborview Medical Center. The cramped space held a shabby sofa, three cracked vinyl chairs, and a television set that worked on only one channel. It had been her home for the past eighty-four hours, ever since the call had come, telling her that her husband had been critically injured in the Hill House bombing.
Family, close friends, doctors, and nurses had passed in and out with food, blankets and pillows, small talk, and medical updates, but most of it was just a jumble in her head. Other than her sister, who had been with her from the start, and the daily telephone call to her mother, who was taking care of the children, all she could focus on was that the last words she had exchanged with Jeff had been in anger over a stupid washing machine. Now there was a very real possibility that she would never hear his voice again.
For just a few minutes at a time, she was allowed in to see him. He lay in a small, sterile, curtained-off room, blessedly unconscious, what remained of his once vigorous body attached by a dozen different wires to machines that blinked and flashed and bleeped, and connected by tubes to life-sustaining drips of blood and glucose and saline. Marilyn had never seen anything so frightening in her life.
“I don’t want him to wake up in pain,” she told the doctors anxiously. “You can give him something for that, can’t you?”
“Of course,” the doctors said, nodding solicitously, not wanting to suggest to her that it was unlikely he was going to wake up at all.
Marilyn and Jeffrey Korba had both been born and raised in the Seattle area, meeting at the University of Washington, and marrying right after graduation. They lived with Marilyn’s parents while Jeff went through medical school. In his last year of residency, they bought a modest home of their own in Issaquah and started their family, two boys and a girl coming in rapid succession. In all their years together, except of course for those nights when Jeff was on duty at the hospital, they had never been apart for more than a day at a time, and they had never once gone to sleep on an argument.
“I wish they’d let me stay in there with him,” Marilyn told her sister. “I don’t want him to be alone.”
“He’s not alone,” her sister assured her in a soothing voice. “God is with him.”
After surgery to remove the metal fragments that had lacerated her eyes beyond repair, Ruth Zelkin was moved to a private room on the third floor at Virginia Mason Hospital. Although the Zelkins could hardly afford the expense, her husband, Harry, had insisted, knowing that the family would want to be in constant attendance, and not wishing to disturb another patient.
He was right. Four of their five children lived in or near Seattle, as did Ruth’s two sisters, her brother, Harry’s brother, and all their families. At least a dozen people surrounded his wife’s bed at any given time.
“The children,” Ruth moaned as soon as the anesthesia had begun to clear from her brain. “What about the children? What about the staff?”
“Don’t think about that now,” Harry told her gently. “There’ll be time later on. Right now, you need to concentrate on getting well.”
She turned toward the sound of his voice, fear creeping into her tone, as she whispered, “How many?”
Harry looked acutely uncomfortable, and for an unguarded instant, he was glad she couldn’t see his face. It was too soon, he thought; she wasn’t strong enough to hear. Their oldest daughter took her mother’s hand.
“You need your rest, mom,” she said. “Talk later.”
But Ruth set her jaw in that not-to-be-denied expression her family knew so well and managed to half lift herself from the bed. “How many?” she demanded.
Her daughter placed both of her hands on her mother’s shoulders and pushed her gently back against the pillow.
Her husband sighed. “Ten members of the staff were lost,” he said.
“And the children?”
Her daughter shook her head vehemently, but Harry shrugged. “Fifty-six,” he told his wife.
Ruth Zelkin’s world, which was already gray, suddenly went black.
The nursery where Jason Holman had spent most of his brief life was dark, heavy curtains blotting out the sun so that his afternoon naps would not be disturbed. Janet Holman sat in the big maple rocking chair where she had nursed her son through infancy, and held and soothed him whenever he was hurt or frightened. She had been in that chair, in that room, since Tuesday night.
She hardly needed light to see the crinkly smile that brightened his face when she lifted him from his crib, or the little arms that reached up for her, trusting her implicitly to defend and protect him from whatever evil might lurk in the big bad world. In truth, she couldn’t have said whether it was day or night, nor did she care.
Outside the room, people came and went from the spacious Bellevue condominium, walking softly, speaking in whispers. They needn’t have bothered; Janet never heard them. She just sat there, gently rocking back and forth, as she always did when Jason was fretful, and stared into the lightless space, in a world of pain so excruciating, so overwhelming, that all she wanted was to go wherever it was that Jason had gone.
“She hasn’t eaten or slept since it happened,” her husband, Rick, told everyone. “I try to talk to her, but I don’t think she even hears me. She just sits there, staring at something I don’t see.” He was red-eyed with sleeplessness himself. “We have to make… arrangements, you know, for the funeral and everything. But she won’t even discuss it. It’s almost like, if she doesn’t have to talk about it, then it didn’t really happen. I don’t know what to do…” His voice trailed off.
“Look, why don’t you let me take care of the arrangements,” his brother offered. “You just take care of Janet.”
“If I only knew what she wanted,” Rick murmured.
“You try to get some rest,” his sister-in-law suggested. “Just leave everything to us.”
Rick slipped into the nursery and leaned over the rocking chair, wrapping his arms protectively around his wife, hardly aware that the minister had followed him in and now stood silently in the shadows.
He knew
exactly how Janet felt. Jason had been the only survivor of thirteen years of trying to get pregnant. “My brother is going to make the arrangements for the funeral,” he murmured into her hair. “It’ll be exactly the way you want it, simple and private, no fanfare, no media, just family and friends to say goodbye to Jason.”
He felt her whole body convulse. “He can’t be alone,” she said in a strange singsong sort of voice that didn’t sound like her at all. “You know how he hates to be alone.”
“He won’t be alone,” Rick said soothingly, although at this point, he had little faith that there would be any Supreme Being to look after him.
“No, he won’t,” Janet agreed, in that same frightening tone, “because I’m going to go with him. Then we’ll be together, always.”
“Please, honey, don’t talk that way,” he said in as calm a voice as he could muster, while ever so slightly tightening his grip on her shoulders for fear she would somehow find a way to slip away from him. “You know you can’t go with Jason.”
“Of course I can,” she replied in the darkness, her words chilling him to the bone. “So you see, tell your brother, there’ll be no need for any goodbyes.”
At that, the minister felt compelled to step forward. “Dear girl, don’t despair,” he said. “Jason is in loving hands. He’s with God now.”
Janet Holman peered up at the man as though she had never seen him before. “God?” she asked, clearly perplexed. “God who?”
Jesse Montero had never been much of a churchgoing man. He always figured that his wife prayed enough for both of them. But on the Sunday after the bombing, he got up, somehow managed to dress himself in his one good suit, and was the first one into the car.
“What are you doing, Jesse?” his wife asked. “You should be in bed, like the doctor said.”
He waved his bandaged arms impatiently. “I am going to thank God for saving my life,” he said through the dressings that covered most of his face. “Now, hurry up and get the children. I don’t want to be late.”
The church was filled for the morning mass. The priest was not surprised. It was always like that after a disaster, people wanting to feel closer to the Almighty.
Margo Montero glanced at her husband, on his knees in the pew, a rosary clamped between his mittened paws. She had slept beside this man every night for the past sixteen years, through good times, bad times, and very bad times: unemployment, illness, hunger, homelessness. And this was the first time in all those years that she had ever seen him truly frightened.
Helen Gamble couldn’t stop crying. Aside from a few minor broken bones and some lacerations, the twins, having been released from Children’s Hospital, were safe and sound in their West Seattle rambler. Helen’s husband, Walter, cut a business trip short and flew home as soon as he got word. But even with her husband by her side, the tears still flowed uncontrollably.
“It’s nerves,” the doctor told Walter. “Don’t worry, it’ll pass.”
“It’s for all those poor babies who won’t ever come home,” Helen told a reporter from People magazine who had played on her sympathy to get a foot in the door. “And for Brenda Kiley, who I owe so much more than I can ever hope to repay. And for all those other people who died… so many of them. I can’t believe this has happened.”
The first thing she did, after making sure the twins were all right and in good hands at Children’s Hospital, was to go to Raymond Kiley, put her arms around him, and assure him that Christopher and Jennifer would never know a day without his wife’s name being spoken.
“They will understand,” she declared, “that there were two women in this world who gave them life.”
“We always wanted kids,” Raymond said. “We were never lucky.”
“You have two now,” Helen assured him.
Brenda Kiley was laid to rest on Monday. Ignoring her own injuries, which had turned out to be far worse than those of the twins, Helen dressed Christopher and Jennifer in their Sunday best, and took them to the private service for friends and family only.
Then she went home, put the twins up for their nap, and wept.
Three-year-old Chelsea Callahan, who had escaped injury in the blast that killed her mother, was placed in foster care while Child Protective Services tried to find a relative who would take her.
The foster family reported that the only word the little girl seemed able to say was “Momma,” and that she cried herself to sleep every night.
After evaluating the results of an eight-hour surgery, the doctors at Virginia Mason concluded that Betsy Toth would never walk again. Her fractured spine had been reassembled, but the nerve damage was too great. The twenty-year-old nurse’s aide would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, and have only minimal use of her hands and arms.
Andy Umanski sat by her side, holding her hand, and watching her sleep. She had slept most of the last five days, which was a blessing, he decided. The stronger she was when she heard the news, the better. She certainly didn’t look very strong to him right now. In fact, she seemed so fragile—pinioned, as she was, to a very scary-looking contraption that rotated her whole body face-up or face-down—that he was afraid she might slip out and fall. At the moment, she was facing up. He leaned over and rested his cheek on her hand.
“I had a dream,” she murmured, waking for a moment, and seeming to know that he was there. “I dreamed we had a baby boy with brown eyes and blue hair. Isn’t that silly? I told the doctor there had to be some mistake, but he said there wasn’t; that this was a special little boy, meant just for us.”
Andy squeezed her hand. “Good for us,” he whispered, and watched as she drifted back to sleep. In the two years he had known her, and particularly during the last six months, after they had become engaged and began planning their wedding, it was always the first thing on her mind, having a big family to make up for being orphaned at the age of eight. He sighed heavily. There would be time, too, but not yet, to tell her that there would be no babies.
Ironically, Shelly Weld and Denise Romanadis, who had shared their last moments of life together, were buried on the same day; Shelly after a large, boisterous Catholic service, and Denise after a small, quiet Greek Orthodox ceremony.
In both cases, the funerals had been delayed because it had taken the medical examiner’s office almost a week to reconstruct the bits and pieces of the two women’s bodies. And all they could do was pray that they had gotten at least most of it right.
They needn’t have worried. Both caskets were closed and both bodies were cremated. Shelly’s parents chose to scatter their daughter’s ashes over Puget Sound. Denise’s remains were interred in a family crypt.
The mayor was an honored guest at the Weld funeral in Seattle. The governor startled Denise’s mourners by making a brief appearance at the Romanadis family church in Northgate.
Joe Romanadis, standing with his three surviving children, was overwhelmed when the governor actually came up and hugged him. It was a great media opportunity. A tape of the moment topped the news broadcasts that evening, and a photograph made the front page of the Post-Intelligencer the following morning.
“Hey dad, you’re famous,” his thirteen-year-old son said.
“I don’t want to be famous,” Joe told him, tears in his eyes. “I just want them to catch the son of a bitch who did this.”
Frances Stocker’s daughter drove her mother from the hospital to Whidbey Island. The psychologist’s legs were in casts up to her hips.
“There are so many steel pins in those legs,” the doctor quipped, “you be sure you don’t meet up with any ’magnates.’” He was very proud of his handiwork. Going in, he hadn’t really been sure whether he would be able to save both legs.
“I don’t want to be a burden on you,” Frances said to her daughter. “I’ll go home as soon as I learn how to get around.” She was discharged from the hospital with a quantity of antibiotics, a prescription for pain pills, and a pair of sturdy metal crutches.
“Mom, you’re not a burden,” Gail Stocker replied. “You’ll stay until the doctor says you can go.”
“The doctors are overcautious,” Frances said with a sniff. “I’ll be an expert on those stilts by the end of the week.”
Gail sighed. Her mother had never been one to listen to anybody, least of all her daughter. “Good,” she said. “I’ll enter you in the Boston Marathon.”
“I just don’t want you waiting on me,” Frances grumbled. “You have enough to do, what with your job and all your animals. I don’t know why you think you have to take care of me.”
“Because I can,” the veterinarian replied. “For the first time in my life, I have the opportunity to really do something important for you. So let me.”
Frances smiled to herself. Her mother’s daughter, she thought wryly—capable, independent, and stubborn. But in truth, the idea of being alone right now was not particularly appealing. Just simply knowing that another person was near at hand was what mattered most of all, especially during the night when it was dark and quiet. When she lay by the hour with eyes wide open, alternately perspiring and shivering, and wondered why she had been spared, when so many others had not. It was nice to know then that someone was there, someone to whom she was connected, someone who cared.
It was easier to stay awake than to sleep. In her nightmares, Frances was back in her office, seeing Grace Pauley perched in the chair just across the desk. Why had the desk protected her, and not that poor woman who had so needed protection? For the rest of her life, she knew she would see that frail figure, those fragile features, that desperate expression, etched on the inside of her eyelids.
It didn’t take Carl Gentry long to discover that a broken neck wasn’t necessarily fatal.
“I thought people died when their necks got broken,” the security guard said to the doctor at Swedish Hospital a week after the bombing.
“Some do,” he was told. “But many don’t. It all depends on the type of fracture. The fact that you remained conscious could have given you a clue.”
Act of God Page 4
