by Stephanie Piper
September 11
8:50 a.m. A man walks down the corridor outside my office. A plane just flew into the World Trade Center, he says.
Two of my sons, Nick and Stephen, and my brother, Curt, work next to the World Trade Center. I run to the conference room. CNN shows the crash. I go back to my office. I dial Stephen's work number. There is no answer. Nick has a new number. I don't know it yet.
9:08 a.m. People in the corridor are shouting. Another plane just went into the building. I dial again. There is no reply. I cannot breathe. I dial Nicky, Stephen's girlfriend, on her cell phone. She answers. Stephen is safe, she says. He's in New Jersey today. Nick is at home. He wasn't going to the office until this afternoon. She is standing at her office window in lower Manhattan. I saw the second plane, she says. I saw it go in.
9:15 a.m. Stephen calls. I breathe. I close my door and kneel by my desk. While I am kneeling, Nick calls. I decided to go in late today, he says.
9:28 a.m. Stephen calls again. He has called Curt's office. Some guy answered his phone, he tells me. He said Curt had left. I breathe again.
9:40 a.m. My husband calls. What about Ben, he says. Ben is our son in Boston, who travels regularly to Japan, flying first to Los Angeles. Was Ben flying today? I say I don't think so. I can't breathe again.
9:41 a.m. Ben calls. He is at his office in suburban Boston. He is safe. I kneel again.
10:30 a.m. I call my brother's house in New Jersey. His wife answers. She is crying. I haven't heard from Curt, she says. Both towers collapsed. He would have called by now. I tell what I know. I tell her he had left his building before 9:30. I hang up. I kneel again.
10:45 a.m. My father calls from Connecticut. Have I heard from Curt? His voice is frail. He asks me to call him as soon as I hear anything.
10:55 a.m. My brother Mark calls from Boston. He has my sister on the other line. We conference. No one has heard from Curt. We speculate that he is walking north, the length of Manhattan, to my sister's apartment on 90th Street. There are no trains or buses. The tunnels and bridges are closed.
12 noon. I go to church downtown. I light three candles. One in thanksgiving. Two in petition: Curt, and all the others.
1:30 p.m. My father calls again. I tell him someone has given me an emergency number in Manhattan, for information about casualties. Don't call it, he says. Not yet.
1:45 p.m. Mark calls. Curt is safe. He walked east and found a ferry to Jersey City. Then he walked to Hoboken and finally home. I hang up. I kneel again.
1:46 p.m. I call my father. Thank God, he says. Thank God in heaven.
2:45 p.m. Stephen calls. He's going to try to drive home to Brooklyn from New Jersey. The bridges and tunnels are still closed, but he thinks one may open soon. I beg him to stay put, to get a hotel room. He wants to be with Nicky, with his brother, with his friends. He will call me later.
3:30 p.m. I call Nicky again on her cell phone. She has walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and is home.
7 p.m. Nicky's mother calls from London. She talked to Nicky once after the first tower collapsed. She has not heard from her since. I tell her Nicky is safe.
9 p.m. I finally get a call through to Nick. He has not heard from Stephen, en route from New Jersey.
11:30 p.m. Stephen calls. He is home in Brooklyn. It took him eight hours. He was lost a dozen times and re-routed through the worst neighborhoods in three boroughs. He had to ask directions a lot, he tells me. He had to roll down the window and ask drug dealers and gang bangers for help. They came up to the car and they said yo, peace, brother. You lost? Here's what you do. You go down there and take a right, and then...
I hang up. I kneel again.
October 4, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 40
© 2001 Metro Pulse
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