A Life Unlived
A man steps off a train into a September morning that no longer exists.
Upper West Side - 72nd St.
Todd sweeps the last subway seat with his hand in Car 9 of the 1 train. 7:30 a.m. on the button.
He beats a middle-aged woman with an ugly orange hairband. She frowns at him. Todd doesn’t notice. He’s already pulling out hedge fund documents from his brown leather satchel.
He thumbs through the morning risk sheet. Net exposure slightly high. Futures soft. Oil rising again. Gross exposure 145%. Too high. A 0.2% tracking error.
For three seconds, his mind flits back to the spacious brownstone near Central Park. Rushed. Big meeting today. His wife, smiling at the sink. His four-year-old daughter holding out a small box wrapped in blue-and-yellow tissue paper.
‘For luck, Daddy.’
He dropped it in his briefcase. There would be time later.
The train lurches forward. More people pile in. Heat. Newspapers open like shields. Faces blank.
Todd scans his pages. The youngest vice president in the firm’s history. President next, if he plays it right.
Tunnel lights streak past.
Then darkness.
A mile from his destination, the lights blink out. The train slows. Groans ripple through the car.
Todd flips open his phone. Dim screen. 45 minutes until showtime. He’ll be fine.
The lights flash.
Three seconds.
Return at half power.
His wingtip taps against the gray linoleum. The train moves again. The lights brighten.
Across from him, a woman murmurs in a foreign language into a thin black rectangle. A man beside her touches his ear. “Yes. I understand. Ok.”
Financial District
The train grinds to a stop at the World Trade Center.
Everyone crushes for the doors. Todd strides across the platform toward the Austin J. Tobin Plaza.
Destination: World Trade Center 2, 97th floor. Corner office.
He flips his phone open.
8:02 a.m.
Sept 11, 2001
“Nice phone,” a young guy in a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt and white dreadlocks snickers behind him. “Vintage.” Cackles.
Todd tightens his dark blue tie.
Eight steps from the exit, he slows. The air seems wrong.
Stops.
A ragged hole in the morning sky.
In the towers’ place, two vast square voids cut into the earth.
Black marble. Water falling inward. Confusion.
Tourists pass in ball caps. Children laughing and darting. Fingers tracing bronze names.
He turns to a woman in running shoes, with small and white plugs lodged in her ears.
“Excuse me… what’s over there?”
He gestures toward the two vast square voids.
She pulls the plug free from her left ear.
“The memorial.”
He nods once.
“No,” he says. “What was it before?”
She doesn’t answer. Keeps moving.
His right hand trembles, and his bronchial tubes clench. Todd reaches for the inhaler in his left front suit pocket. Pulls it out, lowers his head, and takes a measured puff. Holds his breath. Counts.
He glances down. A line of ants in a wad of purple gum.
Light shifts. He looks up.
A glass tower rises where nothing like it should exist. Faceted. Tapered. Angled toward the sky.
Blue-white panels catch the morning sun.
Impressive.
Deliberate.
Well done.
Renovation? A film set, complete with a museum?
He waits for the illusion to break.
Maybe scaffolding.
A crane will swing across the sky.
Someone will shout, ‘cut.’
Nothing moves but tourists.
Wind slides across the plaza.
The glass tower remains.
Only then does he see the entrance — glass and steel descending into the earth.
The Museum.
The Museum
National September 11 Memorial & Museum
He reads the sign once.
Again.
September 11.
Memorial.
Museum.
Memorial is for the dead.
Museum is for what no longer exists.
He looks back at the sky where the towers should be.
They are not there.
The air feels thinner.
Todd knows.
But he needs to know everything.
He pulls a twenty from his wallet and hands it over.
Andrew Jackson looks worn. The paper is softer than Todd remembers. All of the bills are.
He steps through the revolving door.
Inside: smoke in photographs. Timelines marching along the walls.
Two planes.
Flames.
People at windows.
People choosing the air.
Towers folding into themselves.
Dust moving north.
Nearly 3,000 dead.
Who did he know?
He stands very still when he sees the his company:
Fiduciary Trust International.
Etched into a wall of bronze.
Turning to his right, he notices a middle-aged woman with a tight black-and-gray bun and kind brown eyes. A red button on her blouse reads: Can I Help?
“You can,” Todd says. “How many died at Fiduciary Trust?”
The woman raises her hand, glancing at the bright screen in her hand. Scrolls with her right index finger. She looks up. Pauses. “Eighty-seven employees,” she says. “Floors ninety through ninety-seven of the South Tower.”
Todd blanches.
Bad coffee in paper cups. Laughter near the printers.
Someone who’d never admit burning popcorn in the microwave.
“Patrick Danahy. Michael Diehl. Eileen Flecha.”
“Sir, they are deceased. I’m sorry.”
His eyes fall to the cracks in the gray marble floor.
Todd clears his throat. “I wonder about Todd Williamson, a relative.”
The clerk scrolls. Stops. Looks up at him.
“Todd Williamson, 97th floor, South Tower. Listed among the deceased.”
“And the body?”
She lowers her voice. “No remains were recovered.”
Todd pauses. “I see.” He notices her gold chain. The red nail polish. He adjusts his tie and walks away.
She murmurs, “Enjoy your day at the museum.”
He walks toward the light off the glass.
A moment later, she scrolls higher on her phone.
A corporate headshot appears.
Todd Williamson.
Fiduciary Trust International.
South Tower.
She glances toward the revolving door.
The plaza is bright. Crowded.
He is nowhere she can see.
In the distance, the glass tower rises and reflects.
One World Trade Center
Todd wanders the plaza. The sun is high and hot. Sweat runs down his neck.
He buys a small bottle of water from an Italian sidewalk vendor. Hands over a limp ten. The man counts out $6.50 in change.
Todd moves closer to the blue-white glass tower, a dagger pointed skyward. Through four revolving doors, he sees an expansive lobby. Security guards. Badge scanners.
A young man in a sharp navy suit rushes past him, speaking into nothing visible. The suit fits him well.
“We’re fine. Trim exposure before close,” the man says. “No, we’re not over-levered.”
He swipes an ID card and disappears inside. Todd finishes the water and walks away.
The Memorial
Todd finds a bench near the black granite edge of the South Tower memorial. Water falls steadily into the square void.
He sits. The air is warmer here. His collar sticks to his neck.
The sound of water never stops.
He stands. Moves closer.
Runs his finger along the bronze. Not searching. Just touching.
Names stretch across the panel. Visitors trace them.
A white rose rests in the curve of an N of a man who worked for Goldman Sachs.
Teens laugh a few feet away. Hats on heads.
Todd leans closer to the bronze panel. He cranes his head to the right, inches above the names of the dead. The names seem to stretch for miles. Then he looks to the left. The same. Lives destroyed, and lives that will never exist.
He looks down and finds his name among the Fiduciary Trust employees. Todd Williamson.
He hesitates. Then he traces his first name. His last. At the final letter, he presses his finger into the cut bronze.
A guide passes: “The memorial panels are temperature-controlled so guests can touch them comfortably year-round.”
He wonders how much air moves beneath it to keep it even in January.
He rests his hand on his name carved in bronze for 10 seconds. Removes it.
Water falls.
For a moment, he cannot remember which tower he stood beside.
North? South? The bronze panels look the same.
A placard describes the North and South reflecting pools
The words start to blur. He blinks, and they sharpen.
He looks for his name once more.
It takes him longer to find it.
He is not certain why.
The memorial recedes behind him.
The sound of water continues — thinner now.
He flips the phone open. 11:00 a.m.
A weight in his right hand. His briefcase.
He opens it.
The yellow and blue tissue paper looks older than it should.
His daughter gave it to him this morning.
He thinks.
He slips the bracelet onto his wrist.
For luck.
The Return
He boards the 1 Train.
Clean tile. Bright lights. Words etched in stone where ads once hung.
The car fills. The train shudders forward.
Then darkness.
Two seconds.
In the dark, the sound of falling water lingers, then stops.
When the lights return, the car is tighter.
Dirtier. Quieter. Tense.
Dim flip phones held to faces.
Someone whispers, “Oh my God.” A sob.
Men in ash-covered suits.
The train screeches to a stop at 72nd Street.
Todd flows with the silent crowd.
He feels as though he should be somewhere else.
He glances at his flip phone. 11:30 AM.
Great clouds of dust hang in the southern sky.
For a second, he thinks of black marble. Water falling inward. Something tall and glass, thrusting to the heavens. The image thins.
A young woman limps beside him. Blood seeps through the strap of her heel. He steadies her until she turns down another street.
He touches the rough bark of an oak tree. Solid.
Five minutes to home.
The bracelet presses lightly against his wrist.
He looks down at it, unsure when he put it on.
Fifty steps.
He has the sense that something important just slipped away.
The thought dissolves.
A construction worker leans against a fence, sobs, “I fawking saw her hit the ground!”
Nine steps to his dark oak door. His pace quickens.
His hand stretches for the brass handle.
Blue and yellow threads circle his wrist.
His wet palm slips.
Dishes clinking inside.
Light footsteps on oak.
Second try.
The door closes behind him.