Darren pulled me through the crowd—and there really was a crowd that night, so many more people than when Julia and I were there—until we turned the corner. And then he stopped. His hand went slack and dropped mine. He stared. And stared. And didn’t say a word.
I looked at myself on the wall. I tried to put myself in his shoes. I was someone he thought he knew better than anyone in the world, and he was seeing a different version of me. He was seeing Lucy-before-Darren, Lucy who loved someone else, Lucy who shared someone else’s secrets and dreams. Who inspired them. I don’t think I ever inspired Darren. And it couldn’t have been easy for him, seeing me through your eyes. I took a step closer to him, but he didn’t reach out to me.
When he finally looked over, I could see the anger simmering in his eyes. The jealousy. The hurt.
We fought about you for the first and only time that night. Darren wanted me to promise never to be in touch with you again, but despite understanding how he felt, I couldn’t agree to it. Eventually my reasonable, chess-playing Darren returned and he took back his request. But it was the most insecure, the neediest I’d ever seen him.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
“I love you,” I told him. “I do.”
Then his voice cracked. “Do you love him?”
“No,” I said. “Just you.” And it was true then, or I thought it was. I promised him that I loved him more than I’d ever loved you, that there’s no way you could compete, when he and I had a family together. By the end of the night, he and I were okay again. We had sex. We slept with our arms wrapped around each other.
? ? ?
I FORCIBLY PUT YOU out of my mind for a while after that. I focused on my anger at the position you put me in, my anger that you hadn’t asked first. I was doing it for Darren, for Violet and Liam, for our family. But I couldn’t stay angry with you. Because I really was flattered that you wanted me in your retrospective. Flattered that I meant so much to you, to your work. In that knot of emotions, a piece of me thrilled at being called your muse.
lxi
Sometimes life seems to chug along, moving forward at a near-glacial pace day to day, until something happens that makes you stop and take notice and realize that a ton of time has passed while you weren’t looking. An anniversary, a birthday, a holiday. On September 11th, 2011, Violet was almost four. Liam had just turned eight months old. I was a producer on three different kids’ shows and developing pitches for two more. And Darren and I had been married for almost five years. It was more than seven years since you left New York. And a decade, exactly, since the first time you and I met. A decade since the attacks that set both of our adult lives in motion and caused our individual journeys to intertwine and separate.
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