Finding Tranquility

PART II: JESS   Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.   — Mae West   Chapter 8 September 2001   No one needed to tell me my husband was dead. After dropping Brett off at the airport, I wasn’t feeling well, so I drove home, made tea, laid down on the living room couch, and turned on the Today show. When NBC cut away from an interview with some guy who wrote a book about Howard Hughes to say we were going to a breaking story at the World Trade Center, I got up to go to the bathroom. Matt Lauer was so calm, the upcoming story seemed about as exciting as watching paint dry. I never could’ve dreamed what I was about to witness, not in a hundred years. When the second plane flew into the south tower, my heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe. The idea that I’d just watched thousands of people die tore me apart. At that moment, I’d yet to realize that I witnessed my own husband’s murder. Like millions of Americans, I spent the morning glued to my television. I picked up the phone and called Brett, despite knowing his plane wouldn’t have landed yet, that he couldn’t answer while in flight. Shaking fingers dropped the phone twice. The FAA cancelled all flights, so I assumed (prayed) Brett’s flight would be making an emergency landing somewhere. Planes were still unaccounted for. He could be on any of them, headed anywhere. Every time the footage paused or went to commercial, even for a second, I skipped frantically around other stations, hoping for more information. Someone reported that fifty planes were missing, thought to be aiming for the fifty state capitals. My heart beat a million times a second. I gasped for air, but nothing happened. Finally, I managed to find my husband’s name in the call history of my phone and press the button. The sound of his voice calmed me almost a fraction before I recognized what he was saying. “Hi, this is Brett. You know what to do. If this is Jess, I love you.” The message usually made me smile, but today I wondered if I’d ever hear him say those words again. I left a voice mail, begging Brett to call me the second he landed, anywhere, for any reason. Seconds after I pressed “end call,” they reported that a third plane had flown into the Pentagon. My fast breathing escalated into a full-blown panic attack. Part of me considered calling for help, a friend, my mother, anyone—but my fingers fell open. The phone dropped to the floor. I couldn’t think, couldn’t move. I sat, feet rooted to the floor, butt glued to the couch. Finally, feeling like a zombie, I forced myself to get up, wash my empty mug, put on make-up, and start my day. The doctor’s office expected me to arrive when they opened after lunch, so I needed to get my s**t together. I was going through the motions, mechanically applying mascara when one of the newscasters started talking about the planes. An American Airlines jet, en route from Boston. I breathed a sigh of relief. We never flew American. Still, a close call. Whoever thought people would h****k planes in Boston of all places. What if Brett had bought a ticket for that flight instead? When the doctor’s office called to reschedule my appointment, I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. As much as I needed to know what was going on, part of me thought the best way to ensure Brett would be okay meant going about my day as usual. The receptionist and I spent more time than we should on the phone, sharing our horror. Having anyone else to talk to, even a stranger, comforted me. I didn’t mention Brett’s flight. If I talked about it, the danger would be real. He’d call me any minute to let me know he was safe. Cell towers everywhere must be jammed. As soon as he got to a landline, a call would beep through on the other line. The newscaster’s voice penetrated my thoughts as I settled our cordless phone onto the base to charge. “United Airlines.” What was that? No. It couldn’t be. My concerns were making me hear things. “…deeply concerned about Flight 175, headed from Boston to Los Angeles,” he said. I raced to the table, scrambling through my purse for Brett’s flight information, even though I remembered yelling it through the car window at his back. Maybe if I took the time to find the paper printout, it would magically have changed. The growing sense of dread in my chest told me everything. There was no need to wait for final confirmation. The airlines knew where their planes were supposed to be, the timing of the crash fit when Brett’s plane would have flown by New York City, and I still hadn’t heard from my husband, whose plane should have been on the ground by now. All the airports were closed; his flight never would have been allowed to continue to Los Angeles after the attacks. He had to have been on that plane. Dead. Gone forever. The last words I’d ever speak to my husband were screamed through a car window at his back. At that realization, the numbness dissipated, and I broke.   ∞ ♡ ∞   The weeks following Brett’s death passed in a haze. When my mother finally dragged me out of bed and forced me to rejoin the living, I remembered nothing about those first days. Unfortunately, I couldn’t forget that he was gone. That I would never look into his warm brown eyes again, never kiss his soft lips. Never hold him or laugh with him or watch bad reality TV with him again. Having a funeral without a body was weird. We didn’t even have ashes sitting in a pretty box or anything. Nope, no remains, period. Just a picture. My husband’s body was spread somewhere around the ruins of 1–2 World Trade Center. Or maybe the wind carried him around the city a bit. Took him down to Battery Park. Hopefully not toward Yankee Stadium. Brett hated the Yankees. He wouldn’t want to spend eternity on that field. Before 9/11, I never thought of myself as a black humor kind of person. Now morbid thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone. It took time to have Brett officially declared dead, which didn’t make sense. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could guess that when a plane slams into the seventy-eighth floor of a building, the people inside don’t have the best chance of survival. But I wasn’t in any condition to deal with that stuff, so I waited. When my parents and Brett’s parents started to push, I finally went through the motions of putting together a ceremony. Like I cared which hymns were sung, what Bible readings we gave. Brett wouldn’t have wanted any of that. A religious funeral would make him roll over in his grave. Except he didn’t even get a grave. A voice jarred me out of these thoughts. “What about this one, dear?” Mom and I sat on the living room floor, surrounded by pictures of me and Brett. There must’ve been hundreds. That’s what happens when you start sharing your life with someone at fourteen. School pictures, yearbook shots, prom pictures, lots of formal posed photos. Not a single candid shot—Brett always preferred to be the one behind the camera. There were about a thousand images of me with my friends, but he wasn’t in any of them. Instead, the only recent photographs were wedding pictures. That was all I had left. Our wedding album, and the memories. That had been the happiest day of my life. On that day, I never dreamed that “’Til death do us part” would come so soon… that a few short months later, I’d be more miserable than I ever knew I could be. A tear dropped onto the pictures in my lap. Mom reached for them, presumably to blot the moisture away. “It’s fine,” I said without looking. “I don’t care.” “This is a lovely picture,” she said. “I’m glad the photographer caught the moment Brett spotted you walking down the aisle.” I’d been glad at the time. Now, seeing the love shine out of his eyes stabbed me in the gut. That love was gone forever. Our love, our dreams, everything. Again, I said, “Use whatever you like.” Mom sighed, clucked her tongue, but didn’t b***h about how detached I was from this process. How could I be interested in something like this? How did anyone distill someone’s entire life into a one-hour service? An afternoon with finger sandwiches and cookies? “Have you thought about Bible verses?” Mom asked. “There are some lovely Psalms.” “Go with Leviticus 26:29,” I said. “That was Brett’s favorite.” Unlike our parents, neither of us were religious. But we’d both gotten a kick out of the website that went through the darker parts of the Bible, and Brett found “Thou shalt eat your babies” to be particularly funny. He’d love to know we read it at his funeral. Except for the part where he was dead. Mom sighed heavily. “I know this is hard for you, Jess…” “Do you? How many times did your husband die?” She flinched, and I sorta recognized that I should feel bad. But worrying about how my grief affected people around me just wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t know how to act, what to do. No one prepared you for this. Especially not at twenty-two. I wasn’t ready to be an adult yet. When Mom spoke again, her voice was softer. “I can do this on my own if you want.” “Sure,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.” Nothing mattered.   ∞ ♡ ∞   A few months ago, when I’d stepped into this church for our wedding, I assumed it be the last time, at least until one of my parents died. I wouldn’t miss the red walls, the hard pews, the kneelers that dug into my knees week after week growing up. Never did I think I’d be back in this church so soon, for this reason. The stained-glass windows were beautiful, and as a child, I’d loved to watch the colors play across the congregation, but today, I hated them for reminding me of the beautiful, sunny world outside. Acquaintances flocked to the church. When we got married, perhaps a hundred people scattered throughout the building, and we’d invited half our graduating high school class. Today, at least a thousand mourners crammed themselves into the rows. Everyone I’d ever met, everyone Brett had ever met, neighbors, every teacher, everyone who’d been at school with us or Brad. Everyone who’d played football against us or cheered for the opposing school. Not just from Lancaster, but the neighboring towns, too. Apparently, being murdered by terrorists brings everyone you ever knew—and plenty of people you didn’t—out of the woodwork to mourn your passing. To be glad it wasn’t them; their brothers, their sons, their cousins, classmates, friends. I hated them all for coming. I’d have traded all of them to get Brett back. The thought of having to talk to all of those near-strangers made me hyperventilate. I couldn’t do this. But the time for socializing was after, and I already had a plan for escape, so I bit the inside of my lip, squeezed Mom’s hand, and lowered my head to at least pretend to listen. At the front of the church, Father Thomas droned. “We gather today to honor the memory of Brett Cooper, a man taken from this world much too soon.” The sermon nauseated me. Or maybe it was the nasty coffee Mom tried to make me drink before we started. Either way, I felt like s**t. Delaying the ceremony two months didn’t make me feel any better when we finally held it. As the priest spoke, I tried not to listen, to focus on other things, anything to keep from having a breakdown in the first row. I imagined Mom’s reaction if I’d managed to talk the priest into using some bizarre Bible reading instead of the usual “better place” crap. How was Brett in a better place? What place was better than here, with me? With his family and friends? What place was worse than being obliterated into a billion subatomic particles? For some reason, they put a coffin at the front of the room, draped with the American flag. I didn't know if my mom or Brett’s mom asked for it, and I didn’t care. A “Never forget” banner hung on the back wall. I wanted to scream and rip it down. That’s the stupidest f*****g slogan I’ve ever heard. No one with a soul was ever going to forget the day more than two thousand innocent lives were taken by terrorists.