Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Summer Snow ❯ Summer Snow ( Chapter 1 )

Summary: On the wake of 9/11, family relations fall apart.

 

 

 

Summer Snow

 

(How 9/11 Happened But I Still Hate My Sister-in-Law)

 

 

I was supposed to be at jury duty that day. But there was an important meeting and lucky me was selected to attend. I dragged myself out of bed an hour earlier and arrived at my 8'x10' cubicle at 8:30 AM instead of my usual 9:30.

 

Problem was, the meeting was supposed to start at 8:30. (I have never been and will never be a morning person.) I quickly dumped my backpack under my desk (a big mistake as it turned out) and ran upstairs. In addition to my wallet, which had band-aids and alcohol wipes, my trustworthy backpack contained an assortment of mostly expired medicine (anti-acid, anti-diarrhea, anti-histamine, anti-inflammatory, and a few others which I admittedly could not identify after having been in my bag for years), a mini-flashlight, my subway card, a tape measure (for shopping during lunch time when I didn't have time to try on clothes), various coupons, a bottle of water, a pack of tissues and an umbrella (even though it was a beautiful clear day). It contained everything I thought I might need in an emergency. I was always prepared. I felt I was prepared for anything and everything - until that day.

 

Despite my tardiness, the meeting had not yet started. I found an empty seat in the conference room and settled down to browse the material in the binder provided to each participant. Nothing exciting, it looked like it was going to be a very long meeting. I glanced around and recognized a few faces amongst the 40 or so attendees, mostly unfriendly ones. A man sat down next to me, but he barely said hello, even though I knew him from a recent interoffice project. Annoyed, I ignored him in return, and went back to flipping through the binder.

 

Suddenly, there was a boom and the whole room shook. I didn't bat an eyelash. It was common to feel vibrations from above. They always seemed to be working on the roof. A middle-aged man in a suit, the head of the meeting, joked, “You Californians don't have to worry. We don't get earthquakes in New York.” The whole room laughed, myself included. I thought, `Why would anyone want to live in an earthquake prone state like California. One day that state will go sliding into the sea, taking all its hoity-toity celebrities with it.'

 

Before the laughs died down, someone from across the hall ran in yelling, “Get out! Everyone get out now! This is NOT a joke!” Some people continued to chuckle, thinking that it was indeed a joke. But I saw the seriousness of his expression. I even knew this man who worked in my office for a time. He didn't have a sense of humor. I didn't ask any questions or think twice. I immediately took off, running after him, hoping he'd lead me to the exit.

 

I ran blindly, not knowing where I was going since I was on an unfamiliar floor, and I had the worse sense of direction of anyone I knew. (I get confused going in and out of the same entrance to a store.) I lost him, but he had led me to the emergency staircase. I made my post-partum body move as fast as it could down the dirty stairwell, which was surprisingly fast compared to some of the people joining me.

 

I exited the building via an emergency side door rather than the front entrance. It was not a conscious decision; it was just where the emergency stairs led. I did not see the burning bodies or the large blocks of smoldering steel and stone in the plaza by the main entrance. All I saw as I ran out were a few fragments of granite and glass. But even that was enough to tell me there had been an explosion, possibly a bomb.

 

My little eight floor building stood next to the North Tower (a.k.a. One World Trade Center, a.k.a. Tower One). The World Trade Center plaza was connected by a little bridge to another building, called Seven World Trade Center. A misnomer in my opinion as it did not sit on the WTC plaza and did not deserve the moniker. (Later, when the building met the same fate as the others, I guiltily acknowledged it as a sister building.)

 

With serious misgivings, I ran across the little bridge, praying it would not collapse from under me, to seek haven in the connected building. (Since childhood, I have had a terrible fear of heights and of falling.) To my relief, I made it safely, but the bridge connected to what was the second floor, so I had to make my way down to the ground floor via the escalators, while conscientiously staying away from the glass doors and windows.

 

There I found a few of my coworkers standing around wondering what the hell was going on. (Afterwards, we agreed that hell was too generous a term.) There was Carl, the office clown, not currently smiling; Steve the cynic, who looked unfazed; and Sam the new guy, who looked very much like he regretted transferring to our office. They told me to look up at the fiery gash near the top of the building. I did not want to approach the glass windows or doors. I wanted to leave the building and get as far away as possible. I wanted to look for a side exit, not one of glass, but something more solid and secure. But there was no one to ask.

 

One of the building's security guards (probably poorly paid and poorly trained) came out to tell us to stay inside. That did not sound like a good idea to us, so we made our way out, pushing through the thick crowd and passing through the treacherous glass doors. Each time I approached glass, my heart skipped a beat. Visions of bloody lacerations all over my body crossed my mind. I had watched way too many disaster movies in my life. (That's how most people die in disasters - from secondary events like flying glass and crashing ceilings rather than the actual explosions.)

 

At the corner of the street we stopped. The street was full of people just standing there and staring up in morbid fascination. That's when I finally ventured a look at the tower. I lifted my head up, up and up, scanning its slim 110 stories until I saw the ugly black and orange gash marring the silvery building near the top. Fiery flames and black smoke streaked out. The top looked very much in danger of toppling over. One look was enough to tell me to make tracks, fast.

 

As I turned my head, there was another loud explosion. I did not look back. I immediately ran for it. I ran north for four blocks before my pathetic futile body gasped for oxygen. Four blocks wasn't so bad, I thought since that should clear the immediate danger zone in case the top of the building collapsed.

 

Still, no one knew what was going on. It seemed that bombs had gone off, like what had happened years ago. (That was before my children, before my marriage.) Somehow my small group of coworkers found each other. Carl had a small radio with him. He reported that two planes had hit the Twin Towers. Our immediate thought was some drunken idiot air traffic controller was going to be in serious trouble. (That would have been better than the truth.)

 

Not knowing what to do or where to go, we continued to walk north with many other dispossessed personnel. Luckily, I always wore comfortable shoes. (Having lived in New York City my entire life, comfortable shoes or sneakers was a must - you never knew when you had to out run a mugger or run after a purse snatcher.) The four of us walked mostly in silence, waiting for our comrade with the radio to give us more news. It seemed no one really knew what was going on.

 

All I could think of was: `I must get home to my kids.' I had to get back to Brooklyn.

 

Half an hour and about a mile later, we were by New York University. Steve was a fellow Brooklynite and we broke off from the group to see if the subway was running. An R train stood at the platform, as if it had been waiting just for us. Alas, I did not have my subway card or any money or anything at all since my backpack was still under my desk at work. (All my preparations had been for naught.)

 

After decades of being an upstanding citizen, the law was deeply ingrained within me and I could not jump the turnstile. How could I get home? I panicked more at this thought than at the preceding events. I anxiously called back my coworker who generously swiped me through the turnstile with his transit card.

 

I had taken the R train everyday for eight years. I knew its regular path and its alternate paths. The train would be going over the Manhattan Bridge rather than the underwater tunnels to get into Brooklyn, thereby bypassing whatever disaster was going on downtown. I would be safe; everything would be fine; and I'd be home with my kids within the hour.

 

But the train did not go over the bridge. Someone with an IQ below dunderhead decided the train could continue its regular route. Halfway between the station where it would normally make a detour for the bridge (Canal Street) and the station before the World Trade Center (City Hall, the WTC station was called Cortlandt Street), the train stopped.

 

We could smell smoke even before the conductor's announcement. The train could not advance nor could it backtrack. We were stuck as the train personnel argued about what to do. A woman near me started crying hysterically. But I could hear restrained sniffling from both genders.

 

`Is this it?' I wondered almost dispassionately. I could not, would not believe it. I shed no tears as I did not believe my end was near. It was just not possible. I had two young children waiting for me - one practically an infant. I would survive this - I must. Yet inside I knew these same thoughts had passed through the minds of many who had already perished.

 

`Oh Lord, Our Father in Heaven, hallow be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven... Thank Thee Lord for Thy daily bread and forgive us for our trespasses and forgive those who trespass against us…' I struggled to think of a prayer, any prayer. Problem was, I had never been to a church outside of a few weddings. The only psalms I knew were from horror movies. I terribly mangled the one prayer I vaguely remembered, but hoped God would get the point.

 

Of course I added in, `God please help me, help us, survive this. I swear I will be a better person. I swear I'll be nicer to my sister-in-law. I will forgive her for all her trespasses. I'll destroy my list of things she's done to annoy me. I swear to be more patient with her, with my kids, with everyone. I swear I'll start with a clean slate…' (the usual bargaining with God when you think you're close to death).

 

Someone interrupted my thoughts. “You're taking this very well for a woman,” I heard my male chauvinistic coworker say to me.

 

I shrugged and replied, “Well, what are you going to do.” There was no point in panicking or crying. My innate survivor's instinct told me to keep calm. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the frantic sobs and heated complaints.

 

But one incident got pass my lockdown state. A totally clueless recent immigrant was desperately trying to keep an appointment somewhere downtown. He kept asking people for directions in his heavy Russian accent. Some patiently, and some rudely, tried to explain to him that the area was probably closed off and his appointment canceled. I ignored it all. There was nothing I could do but wait until the time action was required.

 

After a few minutes, which seemed like hours, the garbled voice from above advised us to move to the back of the train. We all crowded into the last car, where one of the train engineers had forced open a door. He used a wooden plank to bridge the gap between the train and the ledge; we were still between stations so there was no station platform.

 

Trying not to breathe the smoke filled air, I slowly followed those in front of me, treading carefully on the narrow ledge. It was a surprisingly well ordered, well behaved line - no pushing or clawing to get ahead. In the dark, lit only by the engineer's dim flashlight, we made our way through the grimy tunnel to a ladder. My fear of suffocating to death won over my fear of heights and I climbed the ladder quickly. (So great was my fear of heights, I had never before climbed a ladder past the second rung.) I tried not to think of how high I had to climb, but instead I focused on the light ahead of me; one hand on one rung, one hand on the next rung; one foot on one rung, one foot on the next rung; over and over until I was out.

 

As I ascended from the dark bowels of the New York subway system, I found to my horror I was back where I started, only a couple of blocks from where I heard the second explosion. But there was no time to reflect on the irony - a cop was screaming at us to run, waving his arms to direct us to a waiting bus. I ran across City Hall Park without pausing.

 

If it weren't for the emergency situation, I would have stopped and stared. Pure glistening silvery white ash fell from the sky and covered everything in a thin silky layer of summer snow.

 

It was September, near the end of the summer, but a wintry landscape surrounded us as far as my eyes could see - the trees, the grass, the benches, more beautiful than any winter nature could have produced. New York winters can be bitterly cold and I was never sentimental enough to stand outside in freezing temperatures to admire a winter wonderland. But on that summer day, the weather was perfect. The mid morning sun shone brilliantly, unobstructed. I could have sat outside and admired the silvery scene for hours. It was breathtaking, in more ways than one.

 

I felt the summer snow, soft and warm, gently caress my cheeks as I ran frantically. I felt it under my feet, smooth and slippery, without the resistant crunch of nature's cold crystals. The amount of white ash clearly indicated that the buildings had burned at very high temperatures and who knew what toxic materials were in the air. I could still smell smoke so I tried not to breathe deeply even as I ran for the bus. It was packed, but only a bit worse than the typical rush hour. I made it just in time, many others did not, and they were left standing outside in the unnatural blizzard. I guiltily did not see my coworker Steve anywhere. He had probably stayed behind to make sure everyone else got out of the subway safely. (Chauvinism and chivalry often go hand-in-hand.)

 

Blocks later, the wintry landscape so often seen in apocalyptic movies finally disappeared. No one knew where the bus was headed, not even the bus driver who simply drove east. People begged him to take them to the nearest hospital. It was probably not his regular route; he did not know where the nearest hospital was.

 

I had lived in downtown Manhattan for two decades before moving to another borough. Despite my abysmal sense of direction, I knew where the hospitals were as I was the overly-prepared-paranoid type. I instructed the bus driver that there were two nearby. One uptown on 12th street, 7th avenue, St. Vincent's Hospital, and a closer one past Chinatown going straight down Madison Street, Gouverneur Hospital. (I used to pass by it everyday on my way to my gang-ridden junior high school).

 

By now we were in Chinatown and I asked to be let out. I looked back and saw Tower One in the distance, still burning. It was much worse than the first time I looked. Huge billowing black clouds tinged with orange obscured the entire top of the building. The other tower was not visible from my vantage point, but I imagined it must have looked the same. Despite the horrible damage I witnessed, it never occurred to me this would be the last time I would look upon their magnificent, imposing edifice. Naively, I still expected helicopters to circle around and save people from the roof and somehow put out the fire.

 

I turned away. I did not want to etch that fiery scene into my memory. I wanted to forget it.

 

I wanted to remember the Twin Towers as they were - two beautiful slender architectural constructs reaching so high as to seemingly touch the sky. I occasionally visited the observation deck in Tower Two (it was free for tenants), but never came closer to the windows than three feet, which I knew defeated whole the purpose of visiting the observation deck. It was to test my fear of heights - I always failed.

 

I wanted to remember the expansive plaza, where they held free lunchtime concerts in the summer. I used to take extended lunches to see puppet shows, juggling, live bands, and then made up vague excuses when my supervisor asked about my absences.

 

I wanted to remember the oddly shaped globe centerpiece, which an old coworker claimed rotated during the day. I once sat for an hour staring at the globe. I think the poor old woman was just batty. I never saw it move even a millimeter.

 

I wanted to remember the fountain, where just weeks ago my daughter repeatedly dipped her little hands and laughed. She futilely attempted to float her little broken boats with their little flags flying at half mast, but to her dismay, the boats kept capsizing. The World Trade Center was not only a place of work for me, but a place where my family visited during our rare free time together. I wish we had taken more pictures that day.

 

About a third of the bus emptied out with me. Most stood around and continued to stare from this safe distance. Some wondered what to do, where they would go next. I already knew my next destination.

 

I had a younger brother who worked in the World Financial Center - a set of newer buildings behind the World Trade Center. We had not been getting along - largely due to my extreme, and mutual, dislike of his witch of a wife. Yes, I had been thinking desperately of returning home to my children, but I also wanted to avoid a confrontation. Our parents had an apartment on the Lower East Side, on the outskirts of Chinatown. I knew he would be there. I did not want to go there, but now it seemed I had no other alternative.

 

I slowly walked the five blocks to my parent's place through the busy streets of Chinatown. They say the Chinese are an inscrutable race. That stereotype was perpetuated that day. Chinatown seemed to exist in a world of its own. The inhabitants continued their daily routine, not stopping to discuss the burning building in the background. Everything seemed normal, as if calamity had not struck at all.

 

He opened the door for me and nodded in greeting. We exchanged reports on our experiences from that morning. He had had a relatively easy time. After evacuating his building, he walked directly to the apartment - no frantic running or crawling through tunnels.

 

I learned he had not bothered to call our parents, who were at my house caring for my kids, though he had called his wife. I immediately called them. They knew nothing of what was going on except that there was no television reception. I tearfully told them planes had crashed into the Twin Towers and I could not get home. I spoke briefly with my daughter, who in her childhood innocence could not understand why mommy was not coming home tonight. Then I called my husband who worked in midtown, far away from the chaos. He said he was trying to hitch a ride home with a coworker. I said I would wait till the next day to see if the subways were running. Then the phone lines went down.

 

My brother and I watched the news in silence, watched as the towers fell. I finally cried, sobbing copiously, using tissue after tissue. I could see his eyes were wet but he was a man and he was able to hold it in. But I was crying not only for the lost of the towers, of the plaza, of my little building, of my way of life for the past ten years, I was also crying for the lost of my brother whom I could not speak to even now, who belonged to a vindictive woman, who sided with her in every disagreement, who now treated his family like strangers.

 

I wanted to tell him how I loved him, how he was still important to me, and how I was glad we were both alive. But such words are not so easily said after years of bitterness and blame. We barely said anything to each other despite the catastrophic events of the day.

 

Hours later, I carefully broached the subject. I said that after what happened today I wanted to start over, a clean slate. I did not want to hate his wife - hate takes too much energy and it gradually diminishes the soul.

 

I had extended the olive branch. In reply, he knocked it away.

 

“No,” he said, “what you did to her was unforgivable and I agree.”

 

It was still summer. The apartment was warm. Yet I felt my heart turn cold, a different cold than fear.

 

What I did? What I did to her? What about all that she had done to me? She was the one who started the feud, daring to criticize our child-rearing practices, likening it to child abuse. She, who had no children, no siblings of her own. She was the one who ranted at us for hours, imagining some unforgivable slight when we refused to pick them up at the airport (thanks to a sleepless night with a crying baby). She was the selfish, stubborn one. Not me. I did nothing but let slip something that she had said about a mutual friend - one of her few, few friends. Now they were friends no more. It was not my fault. She did say it.

 

But I swallowed my anger and remembered my deal with God only hours earlier. I iterated my position. I was not going to hold the past against her. As far as I was concerned, we were starting fresh.

 

His only reply was a shrug.

 

My brother, whom I've known his entire life. His wife, whom he's known for a few short years. Yet he did everything for her, cared only for her, called only her. I was the one who took care of him while our parents worked. I was the one who helped him with his homework, his reports, his tests, his college applications, his job applications. If I had died today, would he have even cared?

 

All that we'd been through as children, as an impoverished family living in the projects infested by roaches and muggers, did he forget it all? I looked at the grown man in front of me, lying down on the sofa, staring blankly at the television news, ignoring me. I no longer recognized him.

 

My little brother, little no longer. I wanted to remember him as he was - the one who played with me, the one who laughed with me, the one who fought with me, the one whom I could bully into doing what I wanted. Now he was a grown man - not one with his own will, but one with another woman to bully him into doing what she wanted. He was no longer the sweet, generous, complacent boy who let me take his toys. She had poisoned him with her money and high expectations. Now, like her, he was petty and pretentious.

 

The news spoke of terrorists who destroyed the towers. Men I did not know. They killed thousands. Yet thoughts of them and their actions did not infuriate me as much as thoughts of my sister-in-law who destroyed the relationship between my brother and me. To me, she was worse than the terrorists who did what they did out of their beliefs and their hatred for our country and our ideals. They did not target me specifically; their hate was not personal. Their actions saddened me more than anything else.

 

Like the twin towers hours earlier, my love for him crumbled to dust. He was no longer my concern, no longer part of my immediate family. I had my own family, my own life, and he had his. Yes, I did start over with a clean slate, but it was with no feelings at all for him or his wife. Though we would see each other during forced family functions, he is as dead to me now as if he had died that day.

 

Years later, the multi-million dollar lawsuits filed by grieving, greedy survivors of those who perished continue. They concentrate on their need for recognition, revenge, and reparations, instead of the things that are more important in life. You would think a tragic event would bring family closer, make people remember to cherish their loved ones and forget about petty past slights. But human nature does not forgive and forget no matter what good intentions you may have.

 

So despite my deal with God and promises to be a better person, to be more patient and understanding, to start life with a clean slate, even now, I still hate my sister-in-law.

 

 

 

Author's Notes: The first part of the story is mostly factual though the sequence of events and some description have been altered to make it read more smoothly and to fit the contest. The second part of the story is mostly fiction though I do have a hateful sister-in-law. The point of the story is how disastrous things can happen on a grand scale but human nature remains selfish and petty.