The Light We Lost

At Violet’s preschool, September 11th was Heroes Day. There was a special gathering in Prospect Park where the kids learned about firefighters and police officers and EMTs. After that, whenever Violet saw a fire truck or a police car or an ambulance, she stopped and chanted, “Go, heroes, go! Go, heroes, go!” She still does. Liam, too. It always makes me smile.

Memorial events took place across the city. Services at St. Pat’s and Trinity Church, and a photography exhibit at the Historical Society. There were two blue columns of light, beaming up from Ground Zero, shining even taller than the towers, visible for miles. And you called. I’d actually been contemplating calling you, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

I’m sure you remember this.

You were in Kabul. “I’ve been thinking about you all day,” you said, when I picked up the phone.

“Me too,” I confessed, ducking into Violet’s bedroom and shutting the door.

“I didn’t know if you would pick up,” you said.

I thought back to all of the times you’d reached out to me. “Have I ever not picked up?” I asked.

“Never,” you said softly.

I sat down on Violet’s bed and told you about Heroes Day, about what was happening in New York. You said you wished you were here.

“It feels like you should be,” I said. “It feels like we should go to the roof of Wien and take stock of the city.”

“I wish,” you said.

Neither of us knew what to say after that, but neither of us wanted to get off the phone. We sat there in silence, receivers pressed to our ears.

“Let’s imagine we’re there right now,” I said.

“And there’s no smoke, just a beautiful skyline,” you said.

I closed my eyes. “And birds, and a blue, cloudless sky, and people walking up and down the streets,” I added. “And you can hear children’s laughter wafting up from a playground below. And no one’s afraid that the next breath they take might be their last.”

“What else?” you asked.

“The Empire State Building,” I told you. “We can see that too.”

“Standing strong and proud,” you said.

“Yes, strong and proud.” I opened my eyes.

“I like that,” you said. “Thank you, Lucy.”

“You’re welcome,” I answered, though I wasn’t quite sure what you were thanking me for.

“I should go to bed now, it’s late over here.” You yawned through your words.

“Okay,” I said. “Good night. Sleep well.”

You yawned again. “I’m glad you answered,” you said.

“I’m glad you called,” I responded.

Then we hung up, and I realized how much it meant to talk to you that day. How I would have felt incomplete otherwise.

Did you feel the same way?

lxii

Sometimes it seems like words, phrases, or people’s names get stuck in my brain, and then I hear them everywhere. I don’t know if they actually are everywhere, or if I’m just on high alert for them so I notice them more.

After you called, Kabul was one of those words. Afghanistan was another.

And three days later I heard those words on NPR. The U.S. embassy was bombed in Kabul. My thoughts went to you. I grabbed my phone before I could even think straight.

Are you okay? I texted.

I stared at the screen until I saw those three dots that meant you were writing.

I’m alive. I’m unharmed. I wasn’t there. But my friends were, you wrote.

Then more dots.

I’m not okay.

I didn’t know how to respond. So I didn’t.

I’m sorry.

lxiii

I often think about how throughout life, we acquire people. More like People, with a capital P. The ones we go to in an emergency—the ones we know we can count on. If we’re lucky, our parents are our first People. Then our siblings. A childhood best friend. A spouse.

Maybe it was because you moved around so much, or maybe it was just because of who you were, but you didn’t seem to collect People like the rest of us. You had your mom. I knew from the pictures on Facebook that you went to see her often. And I guess you had me. But otherwise, you had a web of acquaintances and friends, like your college roommates, whom you visited from time to time, but didn’t seem to feel comfortable leaning on. At least, not while we were together, and I assume not afterward, because I was the one you called.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and your number popped onto my phone. I was pushing Violet on a swing in Coxsackie Park. That’s not actually the name of the park, but it’s what this woman Viviana started calling the park the summer before, when her son, Mateo, and four other kids came down with the Coxsackie virus after playing on the playground there. Word spread through the neighborhood parents like the virus spread through our kids, and no one went there for months. But common wisdom was that the virus must’ve died over the winter, and that day I wasn’t the only parent at the swings.

Darren was with Liam at a father-child swim class.

I gave Violet a big push, and then hit the green accept button on my phone. All I could hear was you sobbing. I watched Violet flying back toward me and pushed her again.

“Gabe?” I said. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Where are you?”

You took a deep breath. “JFK,” you said. “My mom’s gone, Lucy. She’s gone.”

And then I heard your ragged breaths and gulping sobs. My heart twinged, the same way it did when I heard Violet or Liam or Darren cry. When I heard Jason cry.

“What terminal are you at?” I asked. “How long are you there?”

“United,” you said, when you were able to speak again. “I have a four-hour layover.”

“I’m coming,” I told you. “I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

I hung up my phone and stopped Violet’s swing, functioning in the crisis-averting mode I used at work. Act now, plan on the fly, make things better. At least show up.

“No more swinging?” Violet asked, pumping her legs in an attempt to get the swing to move again.

“Vi,” I said, “we have an important job to do: we have to go to the airport to see Mommy’s friend. He’s a little sad right now because his mom had to go away for a long time, so he might be crying. But we’re going to try to make him feel better.”

She raised her arms so I could take her out of the swing. “Sometimes I’m sad and I cry.”

“Yeah,” I told her, lifting her up. “Me too.”

After Violet was settled into her stroller, I checked the time. Darren’s swim class was over, but he usually hung out with the dads and babies at a coffee shop near the pool for a while afterward. I steeled myself and called him. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“I have to take a trip to JFK,” I told Darren, when he picked up. I could hear Liam babbling in the background.

“What?” Darren said, clearly distracted. “Why?”

We hadn’t talked about you since the night of your exhibit. I knew he wasn’t going to take this well. But I couldn’t leave you, sobbing, alone at Terminal 7. It was those pomegranate seeds again. I was stuck, like Persephone.

“I just got a call from Gabe—Gabe Samson,” I said. “His mother died and he’s at JFK. He’s falling apart.”

Darren was silent on the other end. I heard Liam saying “bagel” over and over again in the background. “And you have to put him back together?” Darren asked. “No.”

“He doesn’t have anyone else,” I said.

“He doesn’t have you, either,” Darren said to me. “I’ll get you a bagel in one minute,” he told Liam.

“Of course not,” I answered. “You have me. Liam has me. Violet has me. But his mother died, and he called. He shouldn’t be alone right now. You wouldn’t want to be alone, if it were you.”

“But I wouldn’t call someone else’s wife,” Darren said; I could hear the tightness in his voice.

“To him I’m not someone else’s wife, just an old friend, someone to call when he’s hurting.”

“He called you his fucking light,” Darren said.

“And I call you my husband. It doesn’t matter what he called me. Please, let’s not do this on the phone. In front of your friends. In front of the kids.”

I imagined his jaw clenching. His eyes closing and slowly opening again. “You’re taking Violet?” he asked. “You know I don’t trust him.”

“I’m taking Violet,” I said. Mostly because I didn’t know who I could drop her with last minute, and Darren was clear on the other side of Brooklyn.

“Fine,” he said. “But I don’t like it.”

I knew I’d have to smooth this over later, I’d have to do a lot of smoothing, but in the meantime, I was going to the airport. I was going to see you.

• • •

AFTER A QUICK STOP to leave the stroller just inside our gate, the taxi dropped us off at Terminal 7 and we walked inside. You’d come out of the secure area, since we couldn’t get in without a ticket, and you were waiting by the doors, slumped on a bench, broken. Your elbows were on your knees, and your chin was resting in your hands. The moment you saw me, you started to cry again. I ran toward you with Violet in my arms, and sat down, leaving her on my lap. I wonder now what was going through her head—and what was going through yours. In hindsight, I think that was a parenting fail on my end. There was no reason Violet should have had to process that, to see someone so distraught. If I were thinking more clearly, I would’ve called some of the moms who lived on our block, and I would’ve told Darren I wasn’t bringing her with me, even if it made him madder. And that might have changed so much.