I'm Fine and Neither Are You

“Actually, I have no donations in limbo, I’m up-to-date on all stewardship processes for previous donations, and Russell has already confirmed that he can cover for me while I’m away.”

“It’s a big ask,” she said.

If she thought this was a big ask, then my chances of switching to an 80 percent schedule were nil. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. Well, at least now I knew. I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking about what she’d said about my future in development.

When I opened my eyes again, she was still staring at me. “Yolanda,” I said as evenly as I could manage, “you’re a good supervisor, and I’m a good employee. A great employee, some would say. And because of that, we’ve always gotten along, and together we’ve done excellent work. But if I’m going to keep doing excellent work, I need to hit pause for more than two days.” I looked at her, amazed she was still listening and seemed to have no plans to interject.

I continued. “As you may recall, I’m still dealing with the death of my closest friend, and I never really gave myself time to grieve. In fact, aside from major holidays when the office is down, I haven’t been out for more than three concurrent days since my last maternity leave. So I’m asking if you will please overlook policies and procedures this one time and let me take a week of my month of unused vacation time so I can go get my head on straight.”

“I expect a full update before you leave,” she said, still doing the wide-stance Superwoman pose she was so fond of.

“Really?!” I said, unable to hide my glee.

She eyed me knowingly. “Yes, Penelope. I’d tell you to get your head on straight, but I’m not sure that’s what you need. Go enjoy your time off.”

As soon as Yolanda was gone, I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Then I reached for my phone and sent a message to Sanjay. How would you feel about some company in New York?

TWENTY-SIX

The nine-hour drive was time enough for every doubt in my mind to ferment and rise. After four nights with Riya, my children’s blood would turn to corn syrup. Yolanda would realize the position Russ and I shared was better suited for one person. And—most frightening of my many worries—this trip would change nothing for Sanjay and me.

This latter fear seemed particularly likely. On the way, we chatted about work and the kids and even Matt. But mostly I gazed out the window while he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and sang along to the playlists he’d prepared for the trip. These were not the sparks of connection I had been hoping for.

But fresh excitement bloomed within me as soon as I saw the skyline’s jagged edge. New York was where I had started my career. It was where I had stopped being the child whose mother had abandoned her and had become an adult with her own story. It was the place where Sanjay and I began—on a day that remained in the memory of every New Yorker who had been there.

We were at the office together that morning; Sanjay had been working at Hudson for only a few weeks, whereas I had already been there a year. I remember walking to the cubicle maze where my desk was located and realizing most of my coworkers were conspicuously missing, then wandering over to the break room, where I found everyone crowded around a television.

“What’s happening?” I asked Alex as I watched the footage of the North Tower burning.

“They think it was a propeller plane or maybe a charter flight,” she said. “A freak accident.”

But barely a minute had passed when a stricken newscaster announced that the South Tower had also been hit.

It was not an accident.

Our editor-in-chief instructed us to stay calm as we awaited instructions from the mayor or the federal government or someone who could tell us what to do next. Our offices were in Midtown, which was probably another target, we all agreed, but who knew what or where was safe? At any rate, no one had to be reminded to stay calm—we were all preternaturally sedate as we called our loved ones to let them know we were alive, at least for the time being, then returned to the television and desk radios to try to make sense of what was happening.

Then the South Tower fell.

Malcolm immediately announced he was leaving—off to an aunt who promised to get him in a car and off to Rhode Island. Then Alex kissed me on each cheek and asked me again if I would come with her and a group of her friends who were going to try to head to New Jersey. I wouldn’t, though I couldn’t say why. I had already called my father and brother, who had both urged me to flee, but with the subways and trains already down, I wasn’t sure that was even possible.

Then the phone lines at our office went out, and it became clear that waiting around in a building two blocks from Times Square was no longer a calm choice.

I quickly gathered my things and started for the elevator, wondering what the odds were that the entire island of Manhattan would be eviscerated and whether it was best to go to my apartment on the Upper East Side or . . . somewhere else that I had not identified. When I reached the elevator bank, Sanjay was standing there.

“We should take the stairs,” he said.

“Pardon me?” I said.

The initial attraction I had felt when we met had not disappeared, but I had muted any mating instinct—while romance wasn’t prohibited in our newsroom, it wasn’t exactly best practice to date a coworker. But that morning, decorum was the last thing on my mind. When Sanjay’s eyes met mine, a sudden, overwhelming desire reared within me.

“The stairs,” he said again. He was still looking at me. “We should take them. In case the power goes out.”

“Good point.”

A senior editor had jogged up behind us, and he disappeared into the stairwell without acknowledging us.

“Where are you heading?” I asked Sanjay as we began to descend the twenty flights leading to the lobby.

“North.”

“As in Harlem, the Bronx, Vermont, or Canada?”

“If all goes well, Canada. But for right now, to my apartment in Harlem.”

He actually lived in Harlem? It had been a guess on my part.

“I’m apartment-sitting for an old professor of mine until next year,” he explained. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know yet,” I confessed. I was still in shock, but fear was starting to break through. “I have no idea what’s safe or smart right now.”

I didn’t know how to describe the look in Sanjay’s eyes, except to say it matched my own. “Me neither,” he admitted.

We had paused at a platform between stairwells, and Sanjay put his hand on my back. His touch was light, yet I still remember the shiver of possibility it sent up my spine. “Why don’t you come with me?” he said quietly.

I didn’t hesitate before answering. “Yes.”

Now, sixteen years later, the man who had been a whim was my husband. As the Holland Tunnel spit us out into the city, he reached for my hand.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

I wondered if he, like me, had just been thinking about our beginning. “I am, too,” I said.

Malcolm and Jon had stacks of the New Yorker. The copies were wrinkled and dog-eared, which suggested that unlike the subscription Sanjay and I had canceled years earlier to save cash and a few trees, they had been read.

“Maybe this is what life would have been like for us if we hadn’t had kids,” I remarked to Sanjay as I riffled through a recent issue. Our friends’ loft had high vaulted ceilings and a floor made of broad mahogany planks. The south wall was comprised entirely of windows; the other walls, like most of the furniture, were white. The few decorations were glass or otherwise fragile and expensive. Stevie and Miles would have laid waste to the lot of it within an hour.

Sanjay was staring out the windows. Three floors below, our old Brooklyn neighborhood had become a new place. Such was life. I could still remember Roger, the editor who had destroyed his marriage with whiskey, complaining that the last of the smutty theaters in Times Square had been shut down. He didn’t care for those sorts of establishments himself, he said; it was the principle of the matter, that money took every tarnished thing and coated it in plastic.

“Maybe. I’m not sure I’d want to live someplace like this,” Sanjay said. “But I’ll take four days without children.”

I already missed Stevie and Miles, but the honking cabs and wailing sirens were a symphony compared to their bickering. I walked to the window, and Sanjay put his arms around me, then kissed me lightly. I kissed him back and was relieved to realize it felt normal and right. “This is going to be good for us, don’t you think?” I said.

“I do. I’m still impressed you told Yolanda you were taking the week off.”

“Asked her.”

“Still,” he said. “You spoke up. You’ve come a long way when it comes to letting people know when things aren’t okay.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But that’s only one thing. We still haven’t . . . you know.”

“I do know.” He hugged me tighter, surprising me. “But much of that’s on me. And your supporting my book idea means more to me than sex.”

“Oh,” I said. This had not occurred to me. “But it wasn’t one of the things you asked for.”

“No, but I didn’t realize how much I cared until I did, if that makes any sense.” He frowned slightly. “You’re sure you don’t mind that I’m going to meetings while I’m here?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I’m proud of you for finishing the proposal so quickly.” I had read parts of it on the car ride to New York, and it was excellent—smart, often funny, and surprisingly engaging, particularly considering I wasn’t exactly his target audience.

Now he was trying not to smile; I could tell. “I wouldn’t say it’s finished, per se. I’m still obsessively editing.”

“But for all intents and purposes, it’s done.”