“Do you remember what it felt like seeing it the first time?” Her tone grew somber. “Let’s face it. We were all the same that day. We were told that Michael Swann had just killed hundreds of people. We believed it! I mean, it was all over the television. Every news program reported it as fact. Am I right?
“I remember it so well. I sat on my bed and watched it on my iPhone. I’d already heard that it was all a mistake. I didn’t yet know about everything else . . . the rest of the story. But I still wondered. I still felt . . . I don’t know . . . suspicious. Then I watched him.”
She pauses. The audience is silent. No one even looks at each other. They have traveled back to relive their own experience of the day.
“I swear I could see his face. I swear I could. I know, the video is so blurry. But when he drops the phone and opens the case and sees it. He sees the bomb! Can you imagine? I remember wondering what the heck I would do. I mean, the me now, since kids, I’d probably dive on top of it, right? Protective mama bear!”
The crowd cheered again, sharing what was obviously an inside joke among fans.
“But then, before kids, I said to myself, I said, ‘Nope, I would have dropped it and ran.’ Not because I was a coward or anything like that. I just think, in the moment, it would have freaked me out. But anyway. Not him, right? What does he do? He takes off, with the case. He knew he wouldn’t make it. There was no way he would. The only reason to do that is to save other people. Only reason. Only one.
“But that face. I watched it over and over. And every time, I swear I knew what he was thinking. It was like I could see his life there in his eyes. And I know, for sure, who he was thinking about. We all do. And friends, we are so lucky, because today we all get to finally meet her together.
“Let’s put our hands together for Julia Swann, author of The real Michael Swann.”
The crowd erupted. People stood. The speaker turned and, clapping her hands, waited for Julia. She walked out, her hair up in a tight bun. She dressed so much like her mother now, sharp, in shades of black. She wore glasses, something new for her, something she’d realized she needed while writing her book. As she took the microphone, the audience realized immediately that her talk would be very different from the first. She did not meander, and she spoke with a formality that was accessible, yet not quite the expectation any longer.
“Thank you, thank you,” she said, looking abashed at the response.
It was her first event, ever. And she looked out at the faces of thousands of strangers and wondered, Can I do this? Then she saw them, Thomas and Evan. Grown men, now. Handsome. They shared the tired eyes of new fathers. They’d each had their first child, her first grandchildren, days apart in June. The fact that they had made it to her talk filled her with an almost overwhelming emotion. It was at once pride and nostalgia. Yet below that, the loss still lingered. It never truly disappeared. She knew that now. But it was better. Every day, it got better for all of them.
Julia smiled at her boys. Thomas gave her the littlest of waves, and it choked her up. The audience, sensing her emotion, simply cheered louder.
“Thank you.”
It came out like a croak. Julia cleared his throat. She had to do this. She had a lot to say.
“Thank you. I can’t believe I’m up here. It feels like a dream.” She paused. “But in reality, it is the opposite. In a way, I’ve woken up. That’s why I wrote my story. Up until recently, I kept it trapped inside me. Sharing it only with my sons. I shut the door on everything else. I never gave an interview. I never mentioned any of it to friends or coworkers. No matter how many people told me I should sue the government for what they did, I stayed quiet. For some reason, when we lost . . . lost Michael, I just couldn’t do it.
“I was asked to read a passage from the book today. Instead, I’ve decided to just tell you a little story that’s in it. It might not come out in exactly the same words. I don’t know, really. But it’s mine. And for the first time, I’m willing to share.
“Someone once asked me, what did it feel like, the moment I realized that it wasn’t Michael. ‘You must have hated that man.’ And truly, I did. For a long time. In fact, I have never said his name, not once. Nor, I think, have my children.
“When the spotlight fell on us that night, it hit me from the inside out. I think I fell to the ground at first. I . . . I really thought it was . . . him.”
She paused again, trying to hold it all together. When she continued, her voice broke, but she didn’t cry.
“I don’t remember this, but I . . . I attacked him. I clawed at his throat like an animal. I drew blood . . . I tried to hurt that man. Honestly, though I’ve never said it before, I wanted to kill him.
“A few weeks ago, though, something happened. Something fabulous and something frightening. I became a grandmother, not once but twice.”
The audience clapped. It gave her a chance to take a breath. Every word she spoke brought up long forgotten pain. Yet she had to continue.
“Frightening? Maybe you think it was frightening because there is nothing that ages you faster than being called a grandmother. That’s not it, though. In fact, I wear that label with more pride than I wear any other.
“No, what frightens me is . . . all of us, including me.”
A hush fell over the crowd. She could sense the tension. But she went on, regardless.
“I am told that nearly everyone in this building watched the video of my husband. You all saw his reaction. You saw what he did. In that station, there were men and woman. People of all races and all religions. They might have been married. They might not have been. They might be labeled based on their sexual orientation or their gender identity. Some may have had a mental illness, and maybe some were truly gifted. Maybe there were artists and”—her voice broke—“hardworking, loving parents just trying to get home to their families.
“I guarantee you that there were people who felt our country was spiraling down into oblivion. Maybe they blamed corporate greed. Maybe they blamed immigrants, or the rich. Maybe, like my husband, they felt like the entire burden of our society rested square on their shoulders and they were running out of hope.
“Maybe they hated the president and prayed for the next one. Maybe it was the other way around. Regardless, I fear one word that likely burned inside far too many of them. It was the same word that burned inside of me when I saw that man’s face instead of my husband’s. That word is hate.
“I have no doubt that hate led to what happened. Anger drove the man that did it. I will never understand that. Nor will I try. Instead, I will always think about the one person I truly knew. The man I lost. My husband.
“And I can wonder. If I was there, how different it would have been. Would I have taken his hand? Begged him to run away? But like you, I can see what he did. Whether it saved lives or not, in the end, he tried to help people. He tried to make a difference. And I ask you, all of you, why? Why would he do that?
“Michael was a great father. He was a great husband.” Julia closes her eyes for a second, thinking back to the night before he left for New York. “He wasn’t perfect. We weren’t perfect. We regretted things. And we struggled just like everyone else. To be honest, the weeks before that horrible day had been . . . well . . . horrible. He was in trouble at work. We were fighting about money. And my husband felt the pressure of our lives like it crushed every last breath out of his lungs.
“But none of that mattered in the end. It all means nothing. And I would take a lifetime of bad days if the kids and I could spend them with him. Instead, what I have are memories, and that video. And what I have is the real Michael Swann.
“Maybe next time we feel that anger building up. We feel that rage. That fear . . . that hatred, we can all see him again. Because the one thing I know is that he didn’t act out of hate. He didn’t cast judgment on the people around him. He didn’t dehumanize thos
e that were different. In the moment, when chaos ruled, he simply acted. His heart, his true heart, the one that is free of all this, it guided him in that moment.
“The more hatred that spreads between us. The more we hear it on the radio and see it on the television and the Internet. The more we let people spew it into our ears, into our children’s ears, day in and day out, the deeper we fall.
“We need to open our eyes. We need to see what’s happening around us. When our leaders use hate and fear to bully voters. When our news programs inflame instead of inform. They do it for a reason. To feed our fears. And fear leads to one place . . . hatred.
“If we just look at the people around us, no matter how different they may seem, they are not. They are like you. They are human. All this fear, all the hate, it strips our humanity away. Although we don’t see it happen, it makes us less than what we are meant to be.
“When I think about Michael, and I think about that day, I know he must have been scared in his last moments. But he didn’t give in to his fears. Instead, he acted out of kindness and selflessness. As so many of us grasp for everything we can, fight endlessly to get ours, he gave. He acted out of love, not hate.
“Is there a lesson to all this? I don’t know. Nor do I know if I’m the one to share it. All I can do is tell you what I learned. Tell you how I vowed to change. I vowed to never vote for a leader who preys on my fears. To stop watching programs that sell drama in the guise of news. Alone, my choices may be in vain. Alone, I am sure I won’t make a difference. But if enough people see it. If enough people notice. And if they all take a stand. If we all stand together, maybe then, things might change.”
* * *
—
Julia sat behind a table. Atop it, stacks of her book rested on a crisp white tablecloth. She thought she was done, yet one last person approached the table. She glanced toward the exit, making eye contact with Evan as her boys spoke with the woman who had introduced her. She winked and he smiled.
Julia greeted the last person in line. Then she noticed that the woman, a twenty-some-year-old with glasses and inexpensive clothes, didn’t carry a copy of her book. Instead, she had an iPhone in her hand and it looked to be ready to record their conversation.
“Are you a reporter?” Julia asked.
“A blogger,” the woman said without a smile. “Did you know that Schmidt is scheduled for a psych evaluation this week? How do you feel about the fact that he’s in a cushy mental health hospital instead of in jail? Is that fair?”
Julia stared at her. She said nothing.
“Will you provide some testimony? Anything? Don’t you think you should be spending time making sure he pays instead of”—she swept an arm over the ten books still remaining on the table—“making money off your husband’s story?”
Julia stood. She looked the woman right in the eye. She noticed the hunger there, the need to be noticed. She imagined the story she might write, the judgment and fear she might lead with, all in an effort to get her words read by strangers. She imagined those reading her article, their fear spiking, their anger flaring. Maybe it was righteous. But what did it get them, really?
“Excuse me,” Julia said as she rose from the table.
She turned and walked to the hallway that led backstage. Once out of sight, she sagged against a wall, her head throbbing. She felt utterly spent as she stared up at the drop ceiling over her head.
“Michael,” she whispered.
Slowly, she pulled out her phone. Holding her breath, Julia went online. It took her less than a second to find the video. For the second time that day, she touched play.
She watched her husband in tones of gray and green. The clip only lasted a few seconds. In it, he seemed to notice something amiss with his bag. Maybe the handle felt wrong. Maybe it was too heavy. She would never know. She could never ask him. Whatever it was, it gave him pause.
Michael’s hand lowered and what looked like a phone slipped from his hand. Julia’s throat tightened, for she knew without a doubt that she was the last person he spoke to. Through watering eyes, she watched her husband stoop and carefully open the bag. Exactly what he saw, she would never know. Yet it clearly unnerved him. Almost instantly, he slammed it shut. He looked around, frantic, and ran toward the exit of the Acela lounge, carrying a strange bag full of explosives.
Julia forced herself to keep watching. She had to. In the video, Michael took five long strides. And then, flash. The screen went a blinding white. And the clip ended. Like millions of others, Julia watched her husband die.
Alone in a dim hallway, she cried once more.
2
Marci Simmons closes the laptop once the screen flashed bright white. She just looks at me.
“Will she come to see me?” I ask.
The therapist shakes her head. “No, she won’t. I told you that yesterday. I tell you every day.”
“I wish she would,” I say. “Every time I close my eyes, I see her. Her eyes were so filled with pain. I just wanted to take that from her. I’d put it on myself. I’d carry it for her, forever, if I could.”
“Do you understand what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” I say. “I do.”
“She’s not your—”
“She wrote a book,” I interrupt.
Her eyes widen. “How do you know that?”
“The newspaper.”
“How did you get a newspaper?”
I look away. “I found it.”
Honestly, I don’t remember. In fact, it might not have been a newspaper. Maybe I just heard someone talking about it. I don’t care, though, because I can tell I was right by the therapist’s reaction.
“Can I have a copy?”
“You know you can’t.”
I have to. It’s all I think about. There are just so many holes. So many questions. And I know she’ll write about me. About her, too, of course.
“But don’t you think it would help? We talk about it all the time. You want me to remember. Maybe if I read about—”
“It’s not your story,” she says.
“Well, I understand that. But it is. How can it not be?”
“You know how.”
I nod. It’s because I left her alone.
“It might help.”
Marci Simmons doesn’t say anything right away. She watches me, as if something might change. How can it, though?
“Have you been writing, still?” she asks.
I nod.
“Can I see it?”
I shake my head.
“You know,” she says, “if I want to see it, I can.”
“I understand.”
We watch each other for a moment. I’m unsure why, really. Then the therapist tents her hands and she looks very earnest.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Really?”
“Yes,” she says.
I know what she wants. But I won’t give it to her. Not today. Not ever.
“Michael Swann,” I say.
Marci Simmons turns her head. She nods toward the door and two orderlies enter. They come into the room and release the shackle from the floor hook. The therapist does not look at me as they lead me from that room back to my cell. I sit on the bed as the lock snaps shut.
Once they’re gone, I pull the notebook out. I want to go to the end, where I left off earlier. I want to write about the day she finally comes to visit. We’ll sit across from each other and I’ll apologize. I’d tell her I would do anything I could to get back to her.
I close my eyes and I picture how it could have been. I feel every minute that I lost. I whisper her name over and over again. Julia. Julia. Julia.
With a tear in my eye, I turn to the first page. On the top line, I let the pen touch the paper. It moves without me thinking about it. When I’m done, I stare at
the title.
The Real Michael Swann
by
Michael Swann
And I wonder what it means.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank rejection. It has been my constant companion through this journey, and without it I would be entirely too well adjusted. More important, it has awarded me the two most important tools a writer can earn—improvement and persistence.
I would also like to thank the people at Barnes & Noble in Wilmington, particularly Kristen. I probably would have kicked me out for being some kind of creepy weirdo by now.
I thank the usual suspects—my Acer laptop, which still runs Windows 7; the kickass Epson laser printer I found for, like, $100; and tea, for helping me transition off coffee.
My wife and kids rock, although it would be nice if I got just a few cool points for all of this. Then again, you have to survive my peculiarities, so I guess we’re even.
My parents, for showing amazing restraint in not asking me how my second book was coming along.
My agent, Stephanie Rostan: You are more clutch than Big Papi.
Jessica Renheim, Christine Ball, John Parsley, and Marya Pasciuto at Dutton: Thanks for inviting me to the table. I promise I won’t steal any silverware. But seriously, I’ve enjoyed every minute working with you and your colleagues.
In fact, I want to thank everyone at Dutton who will work on this book at some time after I write these acknowledgments. I don’t know who you are yet, but thanks in advance!
And to everyone I have not mentioned, including you. If you’ve gotten this far, then I thank you even more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bryan Reardon is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Finding Jake. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Bryan worked for the State of Delaware for more than a decade, starting in the office of the governor. He holds a degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with his wife and kids.
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