A woman who had somehow evaded police lines and tumbled through the snow too close to the carnage was sick and had to be helped away.
As darkness gathered, floodlights were set up on either bank of the river. The cutting torches went deeper into the tail. More bodies were brought out.
The plane just missed taking down the water company offices, where fifty employees worked during the week. Hamilton Junior High was only a block away. These details would make it into his story.
Miri
None of them was hungry that night but Irene insisted they eat something. She whipped up scrambled eggs and toast while Henry’s girlfriend, Leah, told them how close the plane had come to the Elks Club.
“Henry had just left when we saw it. I ran out after him but he was already gone. So I went back inside and started playing the piano really loud. I played a march and told the children to pretend they were elephants. One of the volunteers pulled the velvet drapes closed so the children couldn’t see anything. We didn’t want to frighten them, so we just kept singing and playing games until their parents came to take them home. We heard the explosions but we pretended to be lions in the jungle, roaring. No one told the children to use their indoor voices. No one told them to settle down. For once they did whatever they wanted, making as much noise as they wanted. And all of them in their party clothes. All those patent-leather Mary Janes. Really, I didn’t know what I was doing. My friend, she went crazy. She saw it out the window and just slumped to the floor. One of the mothers had to take her to the ladies’ lounge to lie down. What could I do? I was responsible for all those children. One hundred children. It could have crashed into—”
Rusty covered Leah’s hand with her own, like a big sister. “But it didn’t and the children are fine, thanks to you and your quick thinking.”
Until then Miri hadn’t thought about how close the plane had come to her school. Suppose it had been a weekday instead of a Sunday? Suppose the plane hadn’t made it to the frozen riverbed?
Henry came home just long enough to drop a kiss on Leah’s cheek, scarf down some food and change into dry clothes. He must have gotten wet at the crash site. Miri could tell by the way he was walking that his leg hurt. He had a cane but Miri had never seen him use it. “I have to get back,” Henry said. “It’s the second worst air disaster in this country, the worst disaster since…” He looked around the table, shook his head and left.
The worst disaster since what? Miri wondered.
The doorbell rang as Miri was clearing the supper dishes. “I’ll get it,” she called, running to the front door. It was Natalie, with her mother and little sister. They stepped into the foyer. Natalie hugged her and gushed tears. “I was…we were…so worried. I couldn’t get through on the phone and I thought…I thought…you know…because you live so close…” She took in a big breath. “We were at The Tavern when we heard but we didn’t stay to finish. They wrapped our food and we took it with us because Daddy had to…had to…”
Corinne finished for her. “Dr. Osner was called in to help identify the bodies.”
Miri stiffened.
Fern said, “Babies died.”
“They say you could hear them crying,” Natalie added.
“No,” Miri said. “I was there and you couldn’t hear anything.”
“Oh, my gosh!” Natalie cried. “You were there?”
“I was coming home from the movies with my mother. We saw it.”
Corinne hugged Miri. “Oh, honey…” she said in her southern drawl. Miri teared up, wishing she could apologize for her fantasy. She’d feel guilty forever for wishing something bad would happen to Corinne, who was kind and good and smelled expensive.
“Miri, who is it?” Rusty called.
“Come in,” Miri told Corinne.
“Oh, no, we don’t want to intrude,” Corinne said. “We just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Suddenly, it seemed important for Natalie and her family to stay, to help celebrate Rusty’s birthday. “It’s Rusty’s birthday and we’re going to have cake.”
“I love birthday cake,” Fern said.
“Well…just for a minute,” Corinne told Miri, following her into Irene’s dining room. Leah jumped up and brought extra chairs to the table.
“Please…sit…” Irene told them. “Let’s be happy we’re all together.”
“Except for Henry,” Leah said.
“But thank god Henry is safe,” Irene reminded her. Irene could always find something good to say about a situation. And for the moment Miri was grateful for both her mother and her grandmother.
When Irene lit the candles on the cake and set it down in front of Rusty, Miri began to sing, “Happy birthday…” The others joined in. Rusty blew out the candles on her cake, thirty-three of them, plus one for good measure, with tears streaming down her face.
“You’re not that old, are you?” Fern asked.
Rusty laughed. “No, I’m not that old.”
Then they all laughed, as if it were a real party, as if nothing bad had happened or would ever happen. Miri forgot to ask what became of the leg of lamb.
Rusty
Rain, shine or disaster, Rusty was on the 7:32 train to New York. The day after the crash was no exception. She hadn’t missed a day of work in fourteen years and she wasn’t about to start now, just because a plane crashed into the Elizabeth River. Never mind that she’d hardly slept, that Miri had spent most of the night in her bed, both of them tossing and turning, dozing off, then waking with a start. When Miri asked if she believed in God, what was she supposed to say? “Of course I believe in God,” she’d told her.
“But how could God let such a terrible thing happen?”
“It’s not God’s job to decide what happens,” she’d said. “It’s his job to help you get through it.” If only she really believed that.
On the train her hands shook and her teeth chattered. The man seated next to her assumed she was cold and offered his coat. “Maybe you’re coming down with something.”
“No, it’s not that…” She thanked him but refused his coat. Maybe she should have stayed home, but then Miri would have wanted to stay home, too, and it was important for her to set an example, to show Miri that no matter what, you take your responsibilities seriously.
She’d landed the Employee of the Year award more than once, and not just because of her exemplary attendance record. If Irene hadn’t stepped up to the plate when Miri was born, Rusty wouldn’t be executive secretary to Charles Whitten, senior partner at Whitten, Granger and White, one of the most respected law firms in the city. Rusty was lucky to have such a good job, such an important job, given that she’d never gone to college. She’d planned to go, had been accepted to Douglass, the women’s school of Rutgers University, but things happen, things that can change your life overnight. Not that she was going to dwell on that. She’d learned a long time ago to look ahead, not back. What’s done is done. Make the best of it and move on. And she had, hadn’t she?
None of the girls at the office asked her about the crash. They knew she commuted from New Jersey, but they were chatting about their weekends—about how their boyfriends couldn’t believe Joe DiMaggio had announced his retirement. Only Mrs. Yates, head of the secretarial pool, said, “You live in Elizabeth, don’t you, Rusty?”
“I do.”
“I heard about the crash. Tragic.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Glad you were able to make it to work today.”
“Me, too.”
And that was it except for her friend Naomi. Rusty’s family called her the “Other Naomi.” They met for grilled cheese sandwiches at the coffee shop around the corner from their offices. Naomi wanted to talk about the crash but Rusty kept changing the subject. Turned out she didn’t want to talk about it, after all, or even think about it. Instead, she bummed a Chesterfield off Naomi and asked for a refill on her coffee.
Miri
Miri expected school to be canceled on Monday morning but there was no announcement on the local radio station. She wished she could stay in bed under the covers with the quilt pulled over her head. She’d slept fitfully last night, waking every hour, finally winding up in Rusty’s bed, the two of them watching over each other. She’d never get rid of the stench in her nostrils, no matter how she washed them, sticking the soapy washcloth up as far as it would go, making her sneeze twenty times in a row. She’d tried telling herself it hadn’t happened. If she went to the river today there would be no sign of a plane. It had all been a bad dream.
Even before she got downstairs the aroma of freshly baked coffee cake wafted up from Irene’s kitchen. And if it hadn’t happened, why would Irene be up and baking this early?
“For the Red Cross, darling,” Irene told her, while Blanche Kessler, home-service chairman for the Elizabethtown chapter, packed the cakes into boxes.
“To serve at the hospitality table,” Blanche Kessler said, “outside the makeshift morgue behind Haines Funeral Home.”