Chapter 17
“It’s really coming down out there,” Alex said to Paul. He locked the door and shut off the outside lights.
“Supposed to last into tomorrow night.”
“Great,” Alex said. “Right when we’re starting to get caught up a bit, we could lose an entire day to weather.”
“A day off won’t kill either of us, but the schedule we’ve been keeping just might.”
“True. How was your meeting?”
“Oh, you know, the usual bullshit. Mayor Upton has all kinds of grandiose ideas, and we spend most of our meetings keeping him in line.”
“I don’t know how you can stand to sit through those meetings.” Alex had teased Paul endlessly about his decision to run for town council in the last election, but he was proud of his brother. Not that he’d ever tell Paul that.
“How was Mom tonight?” Paul asked.
“Fine. No problems.”
“Glad to hear it.” Paul sat across from him in one of the chairs. “So you and Jenny, huh?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Do you know about her?”
“What does that mean? I know her quite well, in fact.”
Paul rolled his eyes at the double meaning he detected in his brother’s comment. “You know about her fiancé and what happened to him?”
Nodding, Alex said, “How do you know?”
“The council hired her. Hang on a minute.” Paul went into the bedroom they used as an office and returned a couple of minutes later holding papers folded in thirds.
He handed them to Alex. “We asked applicants to write us a letter telling us why they wanted to be the lighthouse keeper. This was her letter. It was one of the most powerful and haunting things I’ve ever read. I’ve never forgotten it.”
With a sinking feeling in his belly, Alex took the letter from his brother. “Are you allowed to show it to me?”
“She’s a town employee, so technically it’s public record.”
“And it’s not wrong of me to read this when she didn’t show it to me herself?”
“Did she tell you what happened?”
“Earlier today. Not all the details, but the gist.”
“Then she doesn’t mind if you know, right?”
“I guess not.”
“I’m going to hit the hay. I’m tapped out after this incredibly long and frustrating day.”
“I’m sorry I caused you a ton of shit by firing Sharon.”
“You didn’t. She did, and clearly you did the right thing if she’s capable of this kind of maliciousness. Don’t sweat it.”
Though Paul gave him a pass, Alex still felt bad for his role in the entire mess. But he didn’t regret firing Sharon.
“See you in the morning,” Paul said.
“Night.”
For a long time after his brother left the room, Alex stared at the folded pages Paul had given him, trying to decide if it was the right thing to read them.
He’d understood after their discussion tonight that she was willing to talk about her loss—to a point.
It had been clear to him that it was difficult for her, even after all this time, and that it had been a relief to her to change the subject.
It would be better, he decided, to get the details this way than to force her to share things she’d rather forget.
Since he found himself thinking about her pretty much all the time, he couldn’t help being curious to know more about her and what she’d been through.
And, he reasoned, if she’d been willing to share such personal memories with people she didn’t know, surely she wouldn’t mind if he read the letter. At least he hoped she wouldn’t mind.
Alex’s fingers trembled ever so slightly as he unfolded the pages and began to read.
My name is Jenny Wilks,
and I’m applying for the lighthouse keeper’s position on Gansett Island. I currently reside in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the reason for my interest in the position dates back almost eleven years.
The morning of September 11, 2001, began like any other Tuesday for my fiancé, Toby, and me.
We woke up in our Greenwich Village apartment, had breakfast, got dressed and left for work—me at an ad agency in Midtown, and he as a financial services advisor at the World Trade Center’s South Tower.
I don’t remember what we said to each other that morning.
Probably the usual stuff about our plans for the day, what time we might be home, what we’d do for dinner.
I so wish I could remember our exact words.
I had no idea then how very precious they would be.
We met at Wharton, survived the MBA program together and were due to be married that October.
Toby was quiet and studious and destined for big things in his career.
I used to call him my sexy nerd. While he tended to be shy with other people, with me he was easygoing, fun to be around and always making plans for our future.
As we grappled with the stress of managing new jobs in New York while planning a wedding in North Carolina (where I’m from), his easygoing nature kept me sane.
I was in a meeting when Toby called my cell phone that morning.
We often sent texts back and forth but rarely called each other during the day.
I was worried he might be sick or something, so I took the call despite the look of disapproval I received from my supervisor.
I vividly recall getting up and starting to walk out of the room.
I was about halfway to the door when the fear and panic in Toby’s voice registered.
He was saying things I couldn’t comprehend.
An airplane had hit the building, there was a fire, and they were trapped.
He told me they were going up on the roof, hoping to be rescued, but if it all went bad, he wanted me to know how much he loved me.
Right around then, people in the office heard what was going on, and everyone ran to the windows, where we could see plumes of smoke coming from Lower Manhattan.
I started to scream. It couldn’t be happening.
I heard the words terrorists and Pentagon and hijacking and all sorts of things that didn’t seem real.
Toby was yelling at me over the phone. “Jenny,’ he said, ‘are you there?” I snapped out of it and realized my entire body was cold.
I was shivering uncontrollably. Toby needed me, and I had to pull it together for him.
Somehow I managed to form words. I managed to tell him how very much I loved him, how certain I was that everything would be fine and we’d have a long and happy life together the way we’d always planned.
Even though I was utterly terrified, I held it together until he started to cry.
He told me he didn’t want to leave me and that he was so sorry to do this to me.
He said he wanted me to be happy no matter what, that my happiness was the most important thing to him.
Alex swiped at tears that rolled unchecked down his cheeks. His entire body ached as he read about the utter agony she’d endured.
You all know what happened, so I won’t belabor the point.
His body was never recovered. It was like he went to work one morning and disappeared off the face of the earth, which is essentially what happened.
For days, weeks, months afterward, I was a total zombie.
My parents came to get me, and I went home with them to North Carolina.
Toby’s parents had a funeral in Pennsylvania that my parents took me to.
I barely remember being there. My sisters quietly canceled the wedding I’d planned down to the last detail.
Everyone was so very nice. Our money was refunded.
People wanted to help in any way they could, but all the kind gestures in the world couldn’t replace what I’d lost. The oddest part was I never cried.
I didn’t shed a single tear, even though every part of me hurt.
I had nightmares for months over how Toby’s life might’ve ended.
It’s a terrible thing to hope the person you loved most in the world had suffocated from the smoke before other more horrific things could happen to him.
I went to therapy and grief groups and all the things my family thought might help.
A year went by without my knowledge, and it suddenly became critically important that I attend the anniversary ceremonies.
My parents were adamantly opposed, but I needed to see it. I needed to see where he had died.
Minutes after I arrived at the place they call Ground Zero, a name I’ve always hated, I broke down into the kind of heartbroken tears you see in the movies.
Apparently, I made quite a scene. It’s another thing I barely remember.
My parents carted me out of there, and I’m told I cried for days.
Once the tears stopped, I was finally, somehow, a little better.
I didn’t feel quite so numb, which was a good and bad thing because that’s when the pain set in.
I won’t bore you with the details of that stage. Suffice to say it was ugly.
“God,” Alex whispered, barely able to see through his own tears.
After two years of barely functioning, I wanted my old life back—or as much of it as still remained.
For all that time, my company held my job for me.
Can you believe that? I still can’t. That was a bright spot in a sea of gray.
They welcomed me back with open arms. I found out my parents had paid the rent on our place in Greenwich Village, which was another bright spot.
I went back to our home and wallowed in the comfort of being surrounded by Toby’s things.
After four years, I asked his parents to come take what they wanted and packed up the rest because it was no longer a comfort to be surrounded by his belongings.
In the fifth year, I started dating again.
That was a comedy of errors with one disaster following another.
I felt sorry for the very nice guys my well-meaning friends fixed me up with.
They didn’t stand a chance against the fiancé I’d lost so tragically.
Still, I went through the motions, mostly because it made the people around me more comfortable with my unending grief.
I did what I could to make it better for them, because nothing could make it better for me.