though it probably meant nothing?
Or the sky steel gray with rain. Kent in a blue-striped shirt and taupe raincoat, leaving the apartment while I still slept. Me in my teal nightgown with the little white daisies all over it, calling him as he was arriving at his office on the thirty-fourth floor, shouting into the phone those two words I’d been dying to say for four years: “I’m pregnant.” And as we discussed plans for a celebratory dinner, I stepped out onto the balcony where red geraniums were nodding hello and there was no orange scarf that day. The unthinkable would still happen, but Kent would come home to me a few hours later, shaken and ash-covered, but he would come home. We would cry about what had occurred that day, both the good and the bad.
I’ve imagined that day in different colors so many times.
When I think back to the first waking moments, before the terrible sequence of events was set in motion, I am awed by how two simple phone calls changed everything. Two ordinary, seemingly unremarkable phone calls.
The first was mine to Kent a few minutes after seven. I knew he would be on a transatlantic conference call and unable to answer his BlackBerry. I held the little pregnancy test wand in my hand, barely able to contain myself as I left him the voice mail that would send him to the one hundred and sixth floor.
Hey, hon. Can you meet me for breakfast at Windows on the World at eight forty-five? There’s something I want to show you, okay? It’s pretty cool. Call me back if you can’t make it. Love you
.
The second was to me from Rosalynn Stauer, one of Celine’s best customers. Mrs. Stauer had a very old piece of fabric she desperately needed me to pick up before she left for Scotland that day so that I could begin the task of finding its match while she was away. Could I come on my way to work?
If I hadn’t called Kent, he would have been on the thirty-fourth floor when the first jet slammed into the North Tower.
If Rosalynn Stauer hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t have been late to meet Kent, and Kendal and I would be dead.
This was why I hadn’t told Kendal I’d been there on the street when the towers fell and her father flew to heaven. It would mean telling her about those two phone calls, one that gave, and one that took.
I didn’t want her to think that the day began to unravel when she became a part of it, just like I hadn’t wanted to give Kent false hope when it had been so easy to protect him from it. I’d bought the pregnancy test in secret. If it had been negative, he would never have had to know.
Seeing that plus sign for the first time in my life was surreal. For several seconds I could only stare at the bit of plastic that quietly announced our baby was growing inside me. And then the joy that filled me was almost painful. It was too magnificent a feeling to experience alone. I wanted to be with Kent when I told him that finally, finally we were pregnant. That was the ache mixed with my joy: He wasn’t with me.
I paced our Brooklyn apartment, over-the-moon happy as I contemplated how I should tell him. I didn’t want to wait until he got home. I wasn’t sure I could. I actually didn’t think I could wait another hour. I wanted wings to fly over the river to tell him. I remembered Kent and I had enjoyed breakfast not too long before at Windows on the World for our sixth anniversary. The restaurant near the top of the North Tower was the perfect place to tell him, since, at one hundred and six floors off the ground, it was practically on cloud nine already.
I made the call to Kent, glad that I had to leave a voice mail. Then I showered and got ready, choosing a pale pink sundress patterned with tulips, as it was supposed to be eighty degrees for a high. The phone call from Rosalynn Stauer came as I was putting on earrings. At first I was annoyed by her intrusion and ridiculous request. She wanted me to essentially rearrange my morning so that I could pick up from
Or the sky steel gray with rain. Kent in a blue-striped shirt and taupe raincoat, leaving the apartment while I still slept. Me in my teal nightgown with the little white daisies all over it, calling him as he was arriving at his office on the thirty-fourth floor, shouting into the phone those two words I’d been dying to say for four years: “I’m pregnant.” And as we discussed plans for a celebratory dinner, I stepped out onto the balcony where red geraniums were nodding hello and there was no orange scarf that day. The unthinkable would still happen, but Kent would come home to me a few hours later, shaken and ash-covered, but he would come home. We would cry about what had occurred that day, both the good and the bad.
I’ve imagined that day in different colors so many times.
When I think back to the first waking moments, before the terrible sequence of events was set in motion, I am awed by how two simple phone calls changed everything. Two ordinary, seemingly unremarkable phone calls.
The first was mine to Kent a few minutes after seven. I knew he would be on a transatlantic conference call and unable to answer his BlackBerry. I held the little pregnancy test wand in my hand, barely able to contain myself as I left him the voice mail that would send him to the one hundred and sixth floor.
Hey, hon. Can you meet me for breakfast at Windows on the World at eight forty-five? There’s something I want to show you, okay? It’s pretty cool. Call me back if you can’t make it. Love you
.
The second was to me from Rosalynn Stauer, one of Celine’s best customers. Mrs. Stauer had a very old piece of fabric she desperately needed me to pick up before she left for Scotland that day so that I could begin the task of finding its match while she was away. Could I come on my way to work?
If I hadn’t called Kent, he would have been on the thirty-fourth floor when the first jet slammed into the North Tower.
If Rosalynn Stauer hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t have been late to meet Kent, and Kendal and I would be dead.
This was why I hadn’t told Kendal I’d been there on the street when the towers fell and her father flew to heaven. It would mean telling her about those two phone calls, one that gave, and one that took.
I didn’t want her to think that the day began to unravel when she became a part of it, just like I hadn’t wanted to give Kent false hope when it had been so easy to protect him from it. I’d bought the pregnancy test in secret. If it had been negative, he would never have had to know.
Seeing that plus sign for the first time in my life was surreal. For several seconds I could only stare at the bit of plastic that quietly announced our baby was growing inside me. And then the joy that filled me was almost painful. It was too magnificent a feeling to experience alone. I wanted to be with Kent when I told him that finally, finally we were pregnant. That was the ache mixed with my joy: He wasn’t with me.
I paced our Brooklyn apartment, over-the-moon happy as I contemplated how I should tell him. I didn’t want to wait until he got home. I wasn’t sure I could. I actually didn’t think I could wait another hour. I wanted wings to fly over the river to tell him. I remembered Kent and I had enjoyed breakfast not too long before at Windows on the World for our sixth anniversary. The restaurant near the top of the North Tower was the perfect place to tell him, since, at one hundred and six floors off the ground, it was practically on cloud nine already.
I made the call to Kent, glad that I had to leave a voice mail. Then I showered and got ready, choosing a pale pink sundress patterned with tulips, as it was supposed to be eighty degrees for a high. The phone call from Rosalynn Stauer came as I was putting on earrings. At first I was annoyed by her intrusion and ridiculous request. She wanted me to essentially rearrange my morning so that I could pick up from
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