Rusty helped Miri to her feet. “Go home and tell Nana we’re okay,” she shouted. “Hurry!” Rusty gave her a gentle shove. “Go, Miri!”
She ran for home. Her feet were numb in her saddle shoes. Snot ran down her face and froze on her upper lip, on her chin, as she rounded the corner of Sayre Street and raced up the front steps. “Nana,” she called, bursting into the house. “Nana, where are you? Nana!” she shouted. “Nana!”
She found her under the dining room table. “A bomb?” Irene asked.
“No,” Miri told her. “Something crashed in the river. They say it’s a plane.”
Irene clutched her chest. Miri grabbed her pills from the kitchen counter. Irene put one under her tongue. “Rusty?” she asked.
“She’s okay.”
“Thank god.”
“I have to go back,” Miri said.
“Over my dead body!” Irene told her.
“Nana, please…I have to help!”
Irene came out from under the table. “Not without me.” She pulled galoshes over her shoes. Miri helped her into her coat, all the time arguing, “It’s too cold for you, Nana.” Cold wasn’t good for Irene’s angina. But Irene wouldn’t listen. She wrapped a wool scarf over her mouth and nose so the wind wouldn’t take her breath away.
Outside, Miri held her arm, afraid Irene would slip and fall on the snow that had turned to ice from Friday’s snowstorm. When they got to the crash site, Irene looked around and gave one cry. Her hand went to her heart. Miri shouldn’t have let her come. She was afraid to let go of Irene’s arm, afraid someone would knock her over. She didn’t see Rusty anywhere. But she recognized Rabbi Halberstadter standing with a couple of priests, all of them stomping their feet in the cold.
And then Uncle Henry saw them and ordered Miri to take Irene home. “Now!” he barked, and Miri wasn’t about to argue with him.
Henry
He’d had to elbow his way through the crowd to where the plane lay on its back in the Elizabeth River, belly ripped open, rubble spilling into the frozen stream and onto the banks. The river was a mass of roaring flames shooting a hundred feet into the air and surrounding the mangled wreckage, one wing pointing straight up.
Firemen, policemen and other rescue workers swarmed to the scene, armed with cutting torches, grappling hooks, blankets, stretchers and bags. A white-clad intern, stethoscope around his neck, went with them, but he didn’t stay long—just long enough to know he wasn’t needed.
When they started separating the debris, a few bodies, or parts of them, became distinguishable. The bodies were brought out in bags and folded blankets. Workers formed a chain to hand up the remains.
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.”