6. Harry
— ? —
Harry
I’m in a conference room two floors down from her office, pretending to listen to a presentation I couldn’t care less about, and all I can think about is Jules.
I keep seeing the look on her face when she walked out of my office this morning, and I keep feeling her hands on my chest, pushing me away.
I’ve been trying to focus on work all day, trying to give her space and trust that we’ll figure this out tonight. But the image of her walking away from me keeps replaying in my head, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m losing her.
Then the fire alarm goes off.
For a second everyone in the room freezes. Then people are standing, grabbing their phones and jackets and moving toward the door.
My first thought is Jules.
I’m on my feet before anyone else, shoving past the people between me and the door and heading for the stairwell.
“Mr. Winslow!”
I ignore whoever’s calling after me. I’m at the stairwell door, pushing through, taking the stairs up two at a time.
The stairs are chaos. A flood of people is pouring down from the upper floors, coughing and pushing, and the air is already thick with smoke. I try to fight against the current and push up toward the tenth floor, toward Jules.
A floor warden in an orange safety vest grabs my arm. “Sir, everyone goes down. You can’t go up.”
“My wife is on ten.”
“The tenth floor evacuates down the west stairwell. She’ll be outside. You need to go down.”
“I need to find her.”
“Sir.” Her grip tightens. “There’s fire on the upper floors. You cannot go up. You’ll get yourself killed and put the fire crews at risk.”
More people are pushing past us, knocking into my shoulders and forcing me backward. I try to fight the flow, but there are too many bodies and too much momentum, and then someone’s elbow catches me in the ribs and I lose my footing and the crowd carries me down with them.
My jacket and my phone are still on the conference room table, and I have nothing on me at all.
I burst out of the stairwell into the lobby and shove through the crush of people heading for the exits. Security guards are trying to keep order, directing traffic and shouting instructions that no one can hear over the alarm.
I push through the front doors and gulp fresh air into my lungs.
“Where’s my wife?” I grab the nearest person, a man in a suit I vaguely recognize from accounting. “Jules Winslow. Foundation offices. Have you seen her?”
He shakes his head and pulls away and disappears into the crowd.
I keep moving and keep searching, grabbing people by the shoulders and asking if they’ve seen her. I tell them black hair, tall, green blouse, foundation offices on ten.
No one has seen her.
Avery appears out of the crowd, coughing hard, with her face streaked with tears. She sees me and practically collapses against my chest.
“Harry.” She can barely get the word out between coughs. “Harry, thank god.”
“Avery, have you seen Jules?”
“She’s fine.” Avery wipes her streaming eyes. “I saw her go out the east exit. She’s fine.”
The relief that hits me is overwhelming, and for a moment I can barely stand.
“You’re sure? You saw her?”
“I saw her leave. She went out the east side.” She grabs my arm and leans on me heavily. “Harry, I can’t breathe. Please, can we move back from the building? The smoke…”
“Go sit down over there.” I point toward the assembly area. “I need to find her.”
“But I told you, she’s fine.”
“I need to see her myself.”
I pull away from Avery and push into the crowd. I check the east side of the building first, scanning every face, looking for her dark hair.
She’s not there.
I circle back to the main assembly area. I grab a woman I recognize from HR and ask if she’s seen Jules.
“I haven’t, I’m sorry. Do you need to borrow my phone?”
I take it and dial Jules’ number. It rings and rings and goes to voicemail.
I dial again, and then a third time and a fourth. Each time it rings out, and each time it gets harder to breathe.
Where is she? If she got out the east exit, why isn’t she answering?
Avery appears at my elbow again. “Harry, please. I really need to sit down. I think I inhaled too much smoke.”
“Then go sit down.”
“Come with me. Jules is fine, I told you.”
“Then why isn’t she answering her phone?”
“She probably can’t hear it with the alarm. Please, Harry, I need you.”
I pull away from her and keep searching. I check the east assembly point again, then the north exit, then the loading dock. I grab everyone I pass and ask about Jules.
I find my number two at the curb with his phone to his ear, and he tells me he hasn’t seen her but he’ll check with security.
Two women from her foundation team are standing together near the street, holding on to each other, and when I ask them, they say the last time they saw her she was in her office getting ready for her presentation. Neither of them saw her on the stairs.
No one has seen her come out.
I find the woman from HR again and borrow her phone once more. I dial Jules’ number over and over, and it goes to voicemail every single time.
Avery is back, tugging at my sleeve. “Harry, I really can’t breathe. Please just stay with me for a minute. Jules is fine. I saw her leave. She’s probably looking for you too.”
I look up at the building while she’s talking and start counting windows along the tenth floor, trying to work out which one is Jules’ office. Avery pulls at my arm again, and I look back down at her.
“If she got out, she would have found the assembly point. She would have checked in.”
“Maybe she went to her car. Maybe she’s…”
The floor warden approaches us with a clipboard, and her face is grim.
“Mr. Winslow? I’ve completed the headcount across all exits.” She checks her list. “Your wife never checked in.”
Everything in me goes still.
“What do you mean she never checked in?”
“I’ve contacted all the assembly points. Jules Winslow is not on any list. She didn’t evacuate with the tenth floor.”
I turn to Avery. “You said you saw her leave.”
Avery’s face goes pale. “I thought I saw her. It was chaos, Harry, everyone was running. I could have been wrong.”
“You told me she was fine. You told me you saw her go out the east exit.”
“I thought I did. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
I stop hearing her.
Jules never checked in. Jules is still inside.
I rip my arm away from Avery and run toward the fire captain.
“My wife is still in the building. Jules Winslow, tenth floor.” The words come out in a rush.
“Her office is the corner unit on the southeast side of the building. The foundation’s meeting room is right next to it, there’s a small kitchenette across the hall, and there’s a private bathroom at the end of the corridor.
She could be in any of those places. She’s tall, black hair, green blouse. ”
“Sir, we have crews on every floor.”
“She didn’t evacuate. She’s not answering her phone. She’s still up there.”
“We’ll find her. I need you to stay back and let us work.”
“I can show you exactly where.”
“Sir.” The captain’s voice is firm. “Stay back.”
I run for the building.
I make it maybe ten feet before two firefighters grab me, one on each arm, and take me down onto the pavement. I fight them, thrashing and kicking, but there are two of them and they’re trained for this.
“Let me go! My wife is in there!”
“Sir, you cannot enter the building.”
“She’s on ten! She didn’t get out!”
“We have crews on ten. They will find her. But I need you to stay here.”
They haul me up and hold me there with my arms pinned behind my back, while I watch smoke pour from the tenth floor windows. The alarm is still screaming. The crowd has been pushed back, further and further from the building.
Behind me, Avery is crying. I can hear her sobs and I can hear her calling my name, and I don’t turn around. She doesn’t exist anymore. Nothing exists except the smoke and the building and my wife inside it.
The tenth floor windows blow out.
Glass rains down on the street, glittering in the sunlight, and the crowd screams and surges backward. The firefighters drag me with them, away from the building and the shower of debris.
Through the blown out windows I can see flames now, orange and red, climbing the walls.
I watch the crews go in and come out, over and over, and I count the stretchers. I strain against the hands holding me to see every face, and none of them are Jules.
Minutes pass, and each one feels like an hour. I stand there held in place by two firefighters and watch the building burn, and the only thought in my head is that she’s up there and I’m down here.
Part of the ceiling collapses.
I see it through the blown out windows, a whole section of the tenth floor caving in on itself. Debris clouds the air, and the crews fall back.
“Jules!” I’m screaming her name and fighting the men holding me. “Jules!”
The wait goes on after that, for five minutes and then ten and then twenty, and I spend every one of them staring at those windows while the smoke slowly starts to thin.
Then, finally, they bring out a stretcher.
I know her before I can see her face. I know the green blouse, gray with ash now but still visible, and the bracelet on her wrist, the one I gave her last night.
“Jules!”
The firefighters let me go. I’m running the second their hands come off me, pushing through the crowd, and then I’m beside the stretcher, looking down at her.
She’s unconscious, and her skin is gray and her hair is matted with blood and debris. Her hands are blistered and raw and her fingers are swelling. But her chest is rising and falling. She’s breathing, and she’s alive.
“I’m her husband,” I tell the paramedic. “I’m coming with her.”
He doesn’t argue. They load the stretcher into the ambulance and I climb in after her, and then the doors are closing and the sirens are starting and we’re moving.
I take her hand, the one that looks less damaged, and hold it in both of mine.
“I’m here,” I tell her. “Jules, I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay.”
The paramedic fits an oxygen mask over her face and starts checking her over, calling information into a radio, and I catch pieces of it, smoke inhalation and a head wound and a possible fracture in her lower leg.
“She’s O negative,” I tell him before he can ask. “She’s allergic to penicillin, and she isn’t on any medication.”
He nods without looking up and keeps working. He lifts her eyelids and shines a light into her eyes, and then he moves down to splint her leg. I keep talking to her the whole time, telling her that I’m here and I’ve got her, because I can’t stand the idea of her hearing nothing but sirens.
“Her hands are swelling,” the paramedic says. “I need to cut her rings off.”
I watch him work. He slides the blade carefully under the gold band and cuts through it, and then he moves to the engagement ring. He puts them both in a small plastic bag and hands it to me.
“Hold onto those.”
I put the bag in my pocket.
The ambulance rocks as we take a corner, and Jules’ eyes flutter.
“Jules?” I lean over her with my heart pounding. “Can you hear me? You’re safe. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Her eyes open.
They find my face, and I see her register who I am and where she is.
I reach for her.
She turns her head away from me and closes her eyes.