Remember This

by Patricia Koerner

  50

  During the next year, John made two movies and did several guest spots on various series. I was glad to see him working and keeping busy even though we saw each other only twice in that time. In October, I had a conference at UC Davis and made time afterward for both Dad and John. The second time was the following March, during Spring Break. Matty and I drove to California to see Dad. I wanted to drive instead of fly so we could have some time alone together. It had been a long time since we had such an opportunity and I didn’t want to waste it.

  Matty was going to graduate from the University of Utah that year and decided to use his business degree working for his father’s record label. Tony had offered him a job and Matty felt that though he wanted ultimately to go into law, he wanted to take a break from school first, get some work experience and save some money. I let him know I would support whatever decision he made regarding his career path and would do anything I could to help him along.

  After we visited Dad, Matty flew to Seattle to visit Tony for a couple of days and settle details about his move there. I took the opportunity to see John. He had just completed the second of his two movies and luckily, had a free day to spend with me. I would be spending the summer writing another research paper, this time on Medieval and Renaissance dance forms, so I didn’t know when John and I would have another chance to be together.

  For Matty’s graduation, Guillermo and I hosted Tony and Deirdre, Dad and Mabel. We spared no expense. I wanted this to be a memorable time for all of us. We had a celebratory dinner that night and the next night, Dad, Tony and Guillermo took Matty for a ‘guys’ night out’ while we women had a night out of our own. I wasn’t too pleased when I saw Matty was quite tipsy when they returned. He stumbled into a chair and instantly fell asleep. I turned to Dad.

  “Dad! I can’t believe you let him get drunk!”

  Dad, well-oiled himself, patted my cheek and said, “Now, Honey, don’t be upset. He’s twenty-one. He’s a man now. Anyway, you know we would never let him come to harm.”

  I laughed and rolled my eyes. “OK, Dad. But could you all at least get him into bed?”

  Matty went back to Seattle with Tony and Deirdre and began working for Tony’s label as his business manager. The grunge movement had played itself out by this time, but Tony still had a number of popular local and regional groups signed on to his label and was doing quite well.

  ***

  One morning in September, I was dressing for work when I got a phone call from another professor in my department. “Do you have CNN on?” she asked breathlessly. “If not, turn it on, quick! A suicide bomber hit the World Trade Center!” I ran into the living room and turned on the TV. CNN and every other channel were running the story. They showed footage of the World Trade Center towers with gaping holes in them, the smoke so thick it blocked the sunlight and could be seen by orbiting satellites.

  I surfed the channels and eventually pieced together what had happened. As I sat listening to the latest report, I watched the towers heave and sway a little, then collapse. They sank as if in slow motion, until the black smoke rose up to obscure and swallow them. I struggled to wrap my mind around it all; people screaming in terror, running for their lives up streets I myself had walked on so many times, now covered in ashes and debris. I remembered my mother telling me about Hell. I realized then that one didn’t have to die to see it.

  Classes were cancelled that day and the next. When they resumed on Thursday, besides my own classes, I took over a class taught by one of my colleagues, stranded in Calgary, where he’d gone to a conference. It would be a week before he could get a flight back. When I finally had time to check my phone messages and correspondence, there were two messages from John, saying he needed to speak with me as soon as possible. I e-mailed him and briefly explained why I hadn’t been in my office and told him to continue trying and eventually he’d reach me. Two days later, he did.

  “Greg is dead. I got a call from Cindy. His office was on a lower floor of Tower One, but he and a colleague took a visitor up to Windows on the World for breakfast. They were still there when the plane hit.”

  I imagined Greg trapped, probably knowing there was no chance of escape and my heart broke. John and I wept together for Greg, for Cindy, for their children. Finally, I asked, “Is there going to be a service?”

  “Cindy said they’ll have one next month, when people will be able to travel again.”

  “I want to come with you,” I said. Though I hadn’t seen Greg and Cindy for probably twenty years, I wanted to be with Cindy now and give her my support.

  It was nearly a week after the attacks before Guillermo and I were able to contact all our friends and colleagues in New York whom we still knew. Thank God, all of them were safe. I learned from Kathleen that she was in Lower Manhattan that day and got stranded there. She finally had to walk across the bridge to Brooklyn where she stayed with her sister until it was safe to return home.

  Greg’s memorial service was scheduled for October 17th. It was to be held in his hometown of Pittsburgh. I was apprehensive about traveling by air. The experience was made worse by the long lines of impatient travelers waiting to pass through the tightened security. One man ahead of me in line finally lost his temper.

  “This is bullshit!” he yelled, heaving his duffel bag in the direction of a couple of security guards. “By the time you people get through checking us all under the armpits, we’re gonna miss the goddamned plane!”

  The guards quickly ran over and accosted him. I heard one say, “Sir, another outburst like that and you will miss that plane.” He settled down after that and we boarded the plane without further incident, but I was on edge the entire trip. My plane arrived in Pittsburgh two hours before John’s. While I waited, I phoned the house and left a message for Guillermo assuring him I had arrived safely.

  When John and I arrived at the Episcopal church to which Greg and his parents had belonged since his childhood, Cindy saw us and came right over. She was just as pretty as when I last saw her twenty years previously. She even still had the sprinkling of freckles on her nose, though I could see her grief beginning to etch its mark on her face. She hugged me.

  “John told me he’d gotten in touch with you and that you were coming,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I know it’s been a long time, Cindy, but I wanted to be here for you. I have many happy memories of you and Greg and the time we were all together.”

  “Greg phoned me from the tower after it was hit. He and a few others tried to find a way down, but were trapped in a stairwell. Smoke was everywhere. He was saying it was so hot and it was getting hard to breathe when we got cut off.” She broke into tears. “How could these people do what they did? How can Greg be gone just like that? I don’t even have his body to bury.”

  I stroked her hair to sooth her. I had no answer for her.

  “He’ll never really be gone,” John said. “He’ll live on in all of us, in our memories, and especially in Ethan and Emily.”

  I felt Cindy’s composure was about to give way, so I took her right arm and John took her left and we helped her to her seat between her two children.

  After the minister delivered the eulogy, a number of Greg’s family and friends stood up and shared memories they had of Greg. John recalled how he, while serving as best man at Greg and Cindy’s wedding, still a little hung over from the previous night’s bachelor party, forgot where he put the ring. As he frantically searched his pockets, the minister rolled his eyes and Cindy was visibly anxious. Greg however, was placid through the whole thing. When John had searched all of his pockets twice and began running his hands through his hair in panic, thinking he’d lost the ring, Greg pointed at his hand and said, “There it is, Buddy. Right there on your pinky.” Afterwards he told John, “I saw you put it on earlier. It was all I could do not to laugh while you were going crazy looking for it.” I could hear a few titters and even saw Cindy smile and shake her head at the memo
ry.

  That night, I couldn’t sleep and I got up quietly so not to wake John and stood at the window. I couldn’t get the faces of Cindy and her children out of my mind. I then imagined that multiplied by almost three thousand and my heart wrenched. I was startled when John came up behind me. “I thought you were asleep,” I said.

  He rubbed my shoulders. “I can see you’re unhappy. What is it, my love? What’s troubling you so?”

  “I keep thinking about the unimaginable losses people have suffered, especially recently, and yet they still retain their faith in God. I lost mine long ago when …” I stopped myself. After so many years, it would serve no purpose to talk about it now, but it would be the closest I would ever come to telling him about Rosebud.

  “It can be hard not to become bitter when so much in life seems unjust. But it helps to remember that the purposes of God, or of the universe if you will, are beyond our comprehension and we must trust that in the end all will put back into balance.” He drew me into his arms and kissed my forehead. “Come back to bed. We both have long flights home tomorrow.”

  51

  John and I, along with the rest of the country, got on with our lives and did what we could to put the tragedy behind us. John returned to the stage for the next several years, performing in a number of venues around the country. I finally joined the twenty-first century and got a cell phone to keep in touch with him. In the spring of 2002, Terpsichore disbanded after one member died of cancer and soon afterward, two more members left when they went through an acrimonious divorce. Each threatened to quit if the other stayed. The other members took sides and the group was irreparably split. I regretted this, but knew the group wouldn’t survive this division. I invested my energies after that in my teaching and in composing.

  I thought often of what John said to me about God’s purpose and putting things into balance. Little by little, I let go of the bitterness I felt towards Him and opened my heart again. I wasn’t sure though, what to do to strengthen myself spiritually. Finally, one Sunday I ventured into a church and attended Mass. I feared I would feel like a stranger after so long. Actually, the beauty of the music and liturgy were oddly comforting. I never have returned to regular attendance, but occasionally, when I want to connect with the divine, I go there.

  That summer, Matty came to Salt Lake City for a brief visit. He was doing well working for Tony. Matty, Guillermo and I sat out on the patio with cocktails one hot humid night, trying to catch a breeze. “I’m saving as much money as I can for law school,” Matty told us. “Going into law is what I really want to do, but I’m worried that Dad will be hurt if I don’t stay with him.”

  I knew that was a distinct possibility, given Tony’s penchant for melodramatics. “Well, let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,” I said. Between the two of us, we’ll come up with a way to handle your father.”

  I convinced Matty to come with me to California to see Dad and Mabel for a few days before going home. Dad had been sick earlier in the year and I wanted to check on him. He was better, but I thought he still looked a little pale. He perked right up though, when Matty arrived with me. He was so proud of his grandson. He was especially thrilled when Matty told him of his plans to go to law school. “I don’t want you to worry about money,” Dad told him. “If you need anything, you just ask your old Granddad.” Afterwards, I went to Los Angeles to see John. He phoned me to say he had just returned from doing a play in Austin and would be home for a few weeks before going to Biloxi, Mississippi to appear in a production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

  For a while I had from time to time, usually when I had just been with John, been pondering whether I should remain married to Guillermo. Sarah Fuller, my rape counselor, suggested during our sessions that, since I was in love with John and in a relationship with him that I had no intention of ending, perhaps it would be more honest to end the marriage. At the time, I couldn’t face such a decision, but now, I was ready. I didn’t love Guillermo anymore. Half a dozen attempts on my part to connect with him and save our marriage had failed miserably. Even when we were intimate, there was no emotional bonding. I was tired of trying. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to take that final step. I suppose I was waiting for the scales to tip and, in July of 2003, they did.

  We received a notice in the mail from the IRS that we owed some sixty-eight hundred dollars in income tax. I couldn’t think of a reason why as our tax accountant was experienced and competent and wouldn’t have made an error of that magnitude. I asked Guillermo and he denied knowing anything about it. I contacted the IRS to see if there had perhaps been an accounting error. They told me that Guillermo had won money on several of his trips to Wendover and never reported it on our tax return. Furious, I confronted him and in the heat of the ensuing argument, it just came out.

  “Guillermo, I just can’t deal with this anymore. I want a divorce.”

  “What? Over a few thousand dollars?”

  “No. The money is just the last straw. Can you really call what we’ve had the last seven or eight years a good marriage? You’re almost never home, you shut yourself in your room when you are home, and you never want to do anything together …”

  “Look, I work hard and when I’m off, I like to relax. I’m not young anymore. For me now, relaxing is unwinding at home and watching a game, not screwing around at concerts and the like. Why don’t you ever want to do the things I enjoy? I’ve asked you to come with me to Wendover many times.”

  “Because for me, relaxing is not vegetating in front of the TV nor is it sitting all night in a smoke filled casino watching my money disappear.” I threw up my hands. “It’s clear that we have no common ground anymore. None.”

  Guillermo put up a resistance, but eventually he realized I was right. We decided that I would pay the taxes we owed and I would then buy out his share of our house, minus the sixty-eight hundred dollars. In September, the divorce became final. He asked Ford Motors for a transfer to Miami and in December, he got it. When he left, I went with him to the airport. We hugged and kissed and wished one another well. I felt no anger, no bitterness, only some sadness and a little regret; but it was the right decision to take this failed marriage off life support.

  By the following spring, I knew that I too wanted to move and start over somewhere else. I began making plans to move to the West Coast to be near John, Dad and Matty. I tried to get a post at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, but had no luck. I then inquired at the University of Washington, but there was nothing there, either. One Sunday morning, I was lying in bed listening to the birds singing in the tree outside my bedroom window and trying to figure out my next move when it came to me. I really wanted to be back in New York. I got up right then and e-mailed an acquaintance from my graduate school days who I knew was still at Columbia. I told him I was looking for a position there and to let me know if anything became available.

  A week or so later, I received word that there were no tenure track openings, but they were looking for adjunct faculty. I was a little disappointed because adjuncts weren’t paid as well and there was little in the way of job security. On the other hand, being an adjunct would give me a certain measure of freedom to pursue other work if I liked. I decided to go for it. I immediately put my house up for sale and engaged a real estate broker to help me find an apartment in New York.

  Through all of this, John and Laurie provided much appreciated emotional support. They phoned me almost daily, even if only for a few minutes. I never second guessed my decision, but even when you know a decision was the right one, it can still be tough. I was in my fifties now and starting life over was a more daunting prospect than when I was younger, but I never looked back. When my house sold, first Laurie and then John came up to Salt Lake City to help me go through everything, dispose of what I wasn’t taking, then pack what was left.

  My apartment purchase was secured and I arrived back in New York the last week of June. I gave myself the summer to settle back in. Contacting old
friends and acquaintances and getting caught up with them helped me feel at home again. So did walking around the city and seeing what had changed in the thirteen years I’d been gone. I visited half a dozen new galleries and attended that many plays and concerts. I also tried quite a few new restaurants. The only thing missing was John. Though he was only a phone call away, I longed to have his companionship, but he was busy all summer filming a movie.

  I began teaching at Columbia in September – two classes of undergraduates. I generally preferred teaching graduates because they tended to be more mature and focused, but I came to see the younger undergraduates as more open minded and receptive. In November, John had time at last to come to New York and we celebrated my fifty-second birthday. This new start was getting off on the right foot, I felt.

  52

  Present Day (September 1st):

  “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get this done,” said Sophie. It was so hard to write. I can’t imagine how hard it was to live through.” She took the drink Hannah offered her and sat down on the sofa.

  “All these years I’ve never spoken about it – until now.” said Hannah as she stirred her own drink. “We began this project to set a record straight, but it has become much more than that. Bringing all that out has been a catharsis for me, an unburdening. What I hope whoever reads this story will draw from it is, you can have the deepest, the most passionate love, but that doesn’t guarantee a smooth road. Love is imperfect, it is messy, and it is complicated; because it is given and received by imperfect, messy, complicated human beings who often screw up. And not everyone gets to have ‘happy ever after.’” Hannah closed her eyes to hold back the tears she felt coming on.

  “When I saw the photos and stories on the internet,” said Sophie, “I just knew there was more to it than what was there. I had no idea then what that was, but I wanted to hear it, to write it. Remember when I told you that I googled you and John? That’s how I found out where you were working. I went to the theatre hoping to find you. When I saw you leave, I followed you to the park, all the while building up the nerve to approach you. I hope you’re not going to be angry because I did that.”