by Gae Polisner
Like none of that matters anymore.
I flip to Comedy Central midway through a commercial and wait. An episode of Win Ben Stein’s Money is on. Perfect. Humor and trivia. I don’t need to wait for Uncle Matt’s confirmation. After a minute, he’s blurting broken answers before I have time to even concentrate on the questions.
Why isn’t Dad here to witness this and see he’s wrong about Uncle Matt? That even if Uncle Matt’s body doesn’t work so great yet, his brain definitely does. His thoughts are getting clearer every day. And that even like this, he’s smarter than any of us will ever be. And, more than that, he needs us. He needs to be here. We can’t ship him off to some facility because it’s taking him longer than we hoped to get better.
I turn and watch him mumbling answers. He looks so much like my dad. Before the accident, the resemblance was uncanny. Before his face got so thin and his jaw got messed up and broken.
A thick lump forms in my throat. As much as I still love him this way, any way, I miss the old Uncle Matt. We used to be really close. Like friends. We’d hang out some weekends if he didn’t have a date or neither of us had other plans. I’d take the subway uptown after school to hang out at his apartment, and we’d get pizza and catch a movie, or rent one and order in. Uncle Matt has an awesome Tarantino collection, so we’d watch Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, or Jackie Brown.
Me, being Ordell Robbie: Is she dead, yes or no?
Uncle Matt, doing Louis: Pretty much.
That part slayed us every time.
I slide off the couch and sit on the floor in front of him. “We should do some stretches, or Karina is going to be pissed when she sees you tomorrow.” I lift his feather-light leg and hold it out, one hand on his heel, the other under his knee to support things. I try to loosen my grip so that he’s holding it there on his own. He fights to without much success.
“You … know … you cah-not … keep her … here … Ky-uh,” he says, his eyes shifting to mine. “You have … call … Mis … Per-suhs … Soc-ia … Servi-ces…”
“I know, Uncle Matt. I know. I will. But on the news they’ve said thousands are missing. She’ll sit there, alone. She completely freaked out on me this morning. Said there was no way she could go to a hospital. She’s really scared.”
“You … dah … he kih … me…” he says.
“Yeah, I know.”
“On-y good … thing … Soc-ia Servi … of-fice … down on … Lafy-eh Stree … so…”
“So it’s closed, right?” He’s helping me, telling me that Social Services may be impossible to get to. Giving me the story for when Dad finds out.
“Nah … tha there … aren’t oth … branch-es…” I nod, letting him know that I understand, lift his other leg, and start the exercises on that side.
“I’ll call tomorrow. First thing in the morning. I promise.” I put his leg down gently, switch and repeat, right after left, until the phone rings, freeing me of the task.
“I’ll get it,” I say, being a wiseass. I pat Uncle Matt on the shoulder. “Maybe it’s Dad. In which case I’ll tell him, before I get both of us in trouble.”
Or, better yet, maybe it’s someone who’s looking for her, calling every number in the city and its suburbs trying to reach her, desperate to claim possession of the girl.
I wrap the towel tightly around me.
The shower was hot,
the mirror completely fogged.
I could wipe it,
and see,
but I don’t want to.
Just sit in the fog for a while and
breathe.
The call is Mom, catching me up on things. They’re working on getting home, but there’s still no word about when flights will resume.
She asks me a hundred questions: Have I seen Dad? Does he look okay? How is Uncle Matt? Has Karina come? And so on.
I answer them all and tell her about Bangor’s uncle and Jenny Lynch’s dad. All she keeps saying is “Oh my god. Oh my god.” When we hang up, I get Uncle Matt washed up for bed. I wipe his face and neck with a washcloth, change him into pajamas, and move him into his bed. I’ll leave the shower to Karina tomorrow.
I think about Karina, how she comes here every day to do this, how tiring it is, how strong she must be to do it by herself.
As I move back toward my room, I stop, hypnotized, outside Kerri’s half-open door.
In the sister’s closet, a pair of pointe shoes,
barely
broken in.
I slip them on and roll up Kyle’s pajama pants,
lace the ribbons around my shins.
From the chair, I take the wings,
slip the straps over my shoulders.
In my head, music plays:
violins, double basses,
piccolos, and
flute.
I start slowly.
Tombé,
pas de bourrée,
glissade,
grand jeté.
Confined to the space
I keep the movements small,
a walk-through to an
imaginary libretto.
(“Come, Papillon.”
Entrechat quatre relevé.
“I’ll show you…”
Passé, closed position …
… feel your fingers on my back …
“Repeat the choreography,
and hold.”)
And hold, I whisper.
And hold.
(I tried, but you left anyway.)
The girl is dancing.
And she’s amazing.
I watch as she stretches and dips and turns, the wings rising and falling, the feathers billowing, until she finally folds to the floor.
I shouldn’t be watching. I should leave her be. Yet, when she’s done, I can’t move.
It’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen.
I return the wings to the chair,
leave the pointe shoes in the closet,
where I found them.
At the shelf, I pick up the snow globe,
the one with the orange trees in the back.
Shake.
Watch the
sherbet-colored dots
rain down.
(Springtime, and you raise your glass.
Summer, then fall.
Leaves the size of saucers drift down,
brown,
red, and
gold,
decompose and turn to dirt.
I shiver, and you put your thin arm around me.
“It will be spring again soon, Papillon…”
But I can’t remember a winter so cold.)
For a change I can’t sleep. I get up and switch my computer on, and search for Missing teen from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School.
A bunch of links with names slowly come up and my heart goes crazy in my chest. But as I scroll through them, none seem to have much to do with a teen girl or the school at all, although some seem recent and connected with the Twin Towers.
My eyes scan the list of matches again, names of people who were in the buildings, worked there, were making deliveries. Names of people on the planes that flew into them. Names of workers at the Pentagon. Names of people on the plane that went down in the field in Pennsylvania. Already, so many names. No wonder no one can find her. The city is full of people looking for people.
Still, where are her parents? Were both of them inside those buildings?
Jesus, what if they were?
I slide open my drawer, pull out her ID and hold it up close in the light of the screen, squinting, then relax my eyes to try seeing beyond the faded letters. As if I’m looking at one of those stereograms of dots and squiggles where, if you relax your eyes enough, a whole hidden picture emerges.
H. M CC II, though I’m really not sure about the c’s or the i’s.
“You need to report her to Missing Persons, Social Services,” Uncle Matt keeps saying. But what if no one is out there looking for her?
&
nbsp; I stare at the letters again—H. M CC II—but the closest I get to seeing an actual word is macaroni. Not a likely last name for a person.
I open a new screen and search for traumatic amnesia yet again, clicking on links, then closing them, until I get to this one from the Encyclopedia Britannica:
Rarely, amnesia appears to cover the patient’s entire life, extending even to his own identity and all particulars of his whereabouts and circumstances. Although most dramatic, such cases are extremely rare, and seldom wholly convincing.
I think of the girl earlier, the way she moved when she danced, graceful and precise, repeating moves as if recalling choreography. She knew exactly what she was doing. What if she really does know everything? What if she’s pretending because she doesn’t want to go home?
I scroll down, taking in the heading labeled Treatments or Therapies:
There are no known therapeutic agents confirmed to prevent or reverse amnesia. Most cases of dissociative or hysterical amnesia resolve spontaneously, either suddenly or over time. Psychotherapy has been demonstrated to be supportive in its initial phase. If memories do not return spontaneously, hypnosis or sodium amytal (a drug that induces a semihypnotic state) may be used to recover them.
I open another screen and type in sodium amytal, which the web quickly tells me is truth serum.
Hypnosis or truth serum. Those are my choices.
Unless she already remembers.
Thursday Morning, 9.13.01
UNCLE PAUL
I wake with a start to the phone ringing.
It’s bright out. Morning. I sit up. Confused between reality and dream.
Another ring. No one is answering.
What day is it?
Thursday.
How has it already been two days since the Twin Towers fell?
The phone rings again as I fight to clear my brain.
Who else would answer it but me?
It all comes back to me: Dad, still down at the site. The girl, off sleeping in Kerri’s room. Uncle Matt, in his room.
He can only get out of there if I get him.
Not normal, but the new normal.
The ringing stops, then starts anew.
I yank on sweats and run to pick up the cordless extension in the kitchen. The coffee pot is empty and clean.
“Hello?” My eyes go to the clock. It’s 7:45 A.M. My whole body clock is off. I’ve lost track of where days start and where they end.
“Hello?” I repeat.
“Kyle?”
“Yeah.” I rub my eyes.
“It’s Paulie.” Uncle Paul. This surprises me, and also makes me mildly sorry I answered. He’s always giving me shit and, worse, he’s barely come to see Uncle Matt since he’s been here.
“Hey, what’s up, Uncle Paul?”
“Hey, kid, how you doing?” The kid thing again. “Everything there okay?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I guess it’s okay in the scheme of things, you know? Why?”
Uncle Paul laughs, sort of. No, I hear it now for what it is: He’s not laughing. He’s trying to make himself laugh. It’s some weird, guttural, not-Uncle-Paul-at-all noise that comes from his throat like a sigh. Like he’s worried about something.
My thoughts start to race.
“Your pop there, kid?”
“Here? No. I don’t think so, why? He’s still down at the site, no? Maybe at St. Paul’s? He hasn’t come home at all.”
“Are you sure, Kyle?” He sounds agitated, concerned.
“Pretty sure.” I shake off sleep, glancing around the kitchen for signs of him. Definitely no coffee. If he’d come in, there would be coffee.
“Kid?”
I get nervous now, too, because if he’s not here, and Uncle Paul is still there, asking where he is, well, I don’t want to think about that. “Yeah. I definitely don’t think he’s here. He said the whole unit was staying down there, until you got as many guys … well … and that, if he needed to, he’d nap at St. Paul’s. The chapel, right? The one across the street from the Pile.”
“Yes, I know all that, Kyle. I’m down here. And I’m at St. Paul’s. But I don’t see him here, and I’m pretty sure he’s not on the Pile.”
“Really?” Shit. “Are you sure?”
“I looked around, but there are a ton of guys … I’ll get someone to radio him. No worries, Kyle. Everything okay across the river?” But I can’t think to answer because my brain is racing with panic and fear. I should get Uncle Matt and tell him.
“Look, really, don’t worry. I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.” I didn’t hear him come in. If he came in, I would have heard him, right? And he’d probably be up now, yelling at me.
“Hang on a sec, Uncle Paul,” I manage, a weird knot settling in my throat. I head toward Dad’s bedroom.
As soon as I turn the corner, I realize. His door is closed. He’s home! He’s in there, sleeping.
I run the other way down the hall, to the foyer. Jesus. How did I miss it? His work boots are right by the front door.
Uncle Paul is going to think I’m a moron.
I swallow hard. “Never mind, Uncle Paul. I think he’s here. I’m pretty sure. Hang on another second.”
I walk down the hall again, turn the knob to his bedroom door, and push it open gently. Dad is under the blankets, dead to the world, his breath slow and rhythmic. I’ve never seen him sleep this deeply in all my sixteen years.
I shut the door quietly and head back to the kitchen.
“Uh, Uncle Paul?” I whisper.
“Yeah. He there?”
“Yeah,” I say, “I’m an idiot. Sorry.” But Uncle Paul laughs. “He’s sleeping. I didn’t hear him come in. I had no idea.”
After I’ve said the part about him sleeping, I wonder if I shouldn’t have, if Uncle Paul will give Dad shit for being home, slacking, in the middle of all this. It would be like Uncle Paul to judge even though it’s easier for him because he’s divorced, and his kids are grown and out of the house, and he’s not taking care of Uncle Matt. He has no one to worry about except himself. “I’ll wake him,” I say. “He’s probably already up. Give me a sec.”
“No, Kyle, don’t!” he barks, then, “Jesus Christ. Thank God.”
And now I get it; I hear it. He’s not pissed, or judgmental, or annoyed. He was scared and now he’s relieved. He thought something had happened to Dad. Even now it must be dangerous at the site, with fires burning, and bomb threats coming in, and steel and concrete collapsing down.
“Kyle, you still there?”
“Yeah … Yes, I’m here.”
“Okay, as long as he’s home, I feel better. Don’t wake him. Let him sleep. We’ve got plenty of guys down here.”
“Okay,” I say, “I will.”
“Have him call me when he gets up.”
“Okay,” I say again.
“I love you, kid.”
Pause. “You, too.”
I hang up and stare at the phone. This is Uncle Paul. No nonsense, no slacking, stop-being-such-a-pussy Uncle Paul. Kyle-should-man-up Uncle Paul. Who just said I love you to me.
So, now I get it. Now I fully understand.
Tuesday, and those planes, they’ve broken something. Permanently. And, in the process, they’ve changed everything.
And everyone.
PANCAKES
The change I sensed with Uncle Paul, I now see evidenced in my dad, by the fact he’s in the kitchen making pancakes on a Thursday morning in September in the middle of the apocalypse. Which is what he’s doing by the time I get out of my very fast shower, which apparently took longer than I thought since Uncle Matt is also up, still in pajamas, but at the table, sitting in his chair.
I stand frozen in the entrance, unprepared. A deer in proverbial headlights.
What am I going to tell him about the girl?
He must not know yet, or he’d be reaming me. That’s for sure.
I stay put in the hall, trying to sort everything, trying to get U
ncle Matt’s attention. But his head is down, away from me, focused on the newspaper on the table in front of him.
My eyes dart around to make sure, but there’s no sign of the girl. And Kerri’s door was closed when I came down the hall.
What if she left again?
I shake off the thought. No. She promised me.
Either way, I definitely need to tell Dad now. And explain how I tried to tell him earlier. Explain how I was planning to call Social Services today.
“Hey, Dad!” I’m about to ramble, just spit it all out when he turns, but the minute he does, and I see how awful he looks, I can’t think about anything else except how relieved I am to see him.
His eyes are red and irritated, shadowed by dark circles. Exhaustion lines every inch of his face. One cheek is bandaged with white gauze, maroon bloodstains seeping through. Another spot over his eye glares at me, black-and-blue and, above it, a deep scratch running across his brow. But none of that is what unnerves me. It’s something else beneath the surface. How very beaten down he seems. Don’t get me wrong, he’s covering, or trying to, by whistling, masking it by pouring batter in the pan. But it’s something in his eyes, in the way he stands, hunch-shouldered, and worn.
Without thinking, I walk over and he drops the spatula and puts his arms around me. I lean against him, my forehead to his chest, like I used to when I was little. For just a moment, he strokes the back of my hair.
My father, who is not a hugger.
A hiccup shakes his chest.
“Jesus, kid,” he whispers into my hair. “You’ve done good around here.”
I nearly lose it when he says that. I squeeze my eyes shut hard, hold my breath, to stop the tears from coming.
When I can, I pull back, and he looks away, too, and nods at the table. “Go on and sit. I thought we all could use some pancakes around here.”
* * *
I do as he says, sit across from Uncle Matt, where the New York Times stares up at him. I spin the paper sideways so we can both see and read the headlines:
STUNNED RESCUERS COMB ATTACK SITES BUT THOUSANDS ARE PRESUMED DEAD; F.B.I. TRACKING HIJACKERS’ MOVEMENTS.
A photo of rescue workers with masks on, moving around the rubble, fills the folded page. Two other headlines on the page glare up at me: BIN LADEN TIE CITED and A GRIM FORECAST, BAREST COUNT, BY THREE OF HUNDREDS OF FIRMS, HAS 1,500 MISSING.
