United We Stand (16 page)

“We
had
to go.”

“The whole city is closed down. Why would you possibly have to go New York? Where did you go?”

“Ground Zero,” my father said before I could answer.

“What?” It was as though my mother had heard him but couldn’t believe her ears. “Is your father right?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice hardly louder than a whisper.

My mother shook her head vigorously. “No, no, you couldn’t do that … you wouldn’t … Why would you want to do that?” She sounded completely confused, but also frightened.

It would have been simpler, easier, to just blame it all on James, tell her it had all been his idea, but that wasn’t true. In some way, actually, it had been my
mother’s
idea.

“It was because of something you talked to me about,” I said to her.

“Me? What could I possibly have said that would make you think you had to go into the city?”

“You told me that sometimes people need to see the body to know that somebody is really dead.”

“I said that?”

“Yeah. Like with Grandpa’s funeral and the open casket.”

“I think I understand,” my father said. “James needed to go to Ground Zero to see what happened to his father.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t just him. I needed to go down there as well.
I
needed to see it.”

“
You
needed to stay home,” my mother said.

“No,” I said. “You needed me to stay home, Mom, but I needed to go.”

“That still doesn’t explain how you got so dirty. What were you doing that would cause you to get so filthy?”

I took another deep breath. This wasn’t going to go over well. “We didn’t just go down to look. We were helping.”

“Helping? Helping how?”

I pointed at the TV. There on the screen was the site, people moving around, cranes removing giant girders, and the bucket- brigade lines.

“James and I were doing that.”

“What?” she gasped.

“We were on the site, helping to remove debris. They gave us helmets, masks, gloves, and even construction boots, and we helped to—”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” my mother said.

“We needed to do it,” I said. “We needed to try to help.”

“Who in their right minds would let two fifteen-year-old boys—?”

“We told them we were eighteen,” I said.

“Eighteen? Who would believe that?”

“I don’t know if they really did believe us,” I admitted. “But they heard about James’s father, and they knew we needed to be there.”

“I understand,” my father said.

“You do?” my mother asked.

“If I hadn’t had to do what I was doing today, I would have gone down myself,” my father said.

“But … but … even if you
had
gone down you would have told me you were going,” my mother argued.

“Of course.”

“But if
I’d
told you what I was going to do, you wouldn’t have let
me
go, would you?” I asked.

“Of course I wouldn’t have let you go … I …
I …” She looked from me to my father and then back to me. “You’re right. I just wish I understood why this matters so much.”

“It was something else you said, about denial,” I explained. “Going there made me understand how close I came—we came—to dying. And you were right. I guess it does mean something different when the bullet just whizzes past your head.”

She knew what I was referring to, even if my father was confused.

“I’m not denying anything,” I told her.

She gave me a little smile. “I have to admit that even if I had known the reason I still wouldn’t have let you go … at least, not by yourself.”

“I wasn’t by myself. I was with James. And James and I were with hundreds of other people, all trying to help, all trying to do whatever we could.”

“But if I’d known, I would have driven you boys down myself,” she said.

“You would have?” Now I was surprised.

“I don’t really understand all of this,” she said, “and maybe it’s part of my own denial to even try. I was just so scared, so terrified of what might have happened, and it’s the last place in the world that I’d want to be, but I’m starting to understand how important this was for you.” She turned to my father. “Important for
both
of you. I don’t really like it, but I’ll understand if you two need to go to Ground Zero tomorrow.”

I shook my head. “I’m okay. I think I’ve seen what
I needed to see. But I’ll go if you need me to,” I said to my father. “I’d go with you.”

“Not tomorrow, but I think it is important at some point for us to go there. I think we need to see what we survived. Not just to watch it on T V, but to see it with our own eyes.” He turned to my mother. “I think all
three
of us need to go. After all, it wasn’t just the two of us who survived this tragedy.”

He reached out and put an arm around my mother, and she curled into his side. She buried her head in his shoulder and started to quietly cry. My father’s eyes were all red, and I could tell that he was fighting to hold back tears. I was too.

“Thousands of lives were ended yesterday,” my father said. “And tens of thousands of other lives were broken or altered beyond recognition. The lives of people like the Bennetts. And for the hundreds of millions of people who make up this country, life has changed. We don’t even know how much or in what ways, or how this is all going to affect us, but things will never be the same again. That much I’m sure of.”

I thought about it. When I’d woken up that morning I’d wanted desperately to believe that everything would just go back to normal, that my life would be what it had been two days before. Now I knew that wasn’t possible, that my father was right. We’d somehow dodged the bullet, but it had still changed who we were, and that change could never be undone.

“These people—these monsters—who did this, they
thought that if they could bring down those buildings they could bring down our country,” my father said. “They just don’t understand
who
we are—
what
we are.” He paused. “This country is strong, and our people are strong. Our government will find the men responsible and make them pay. Have no doubt.”

“I don’t, but
we
need to do something, too.”

“You did something today, and I’m proud of you.”

“We’re both proud of you,” my mother said.

“I did what I needed to do.”

“That’s what we’re all going to do,” my father said. “We’re going to go back to work; planes will start flying again; we’ll go back to our lives. We’re not going to forget what happened, or the people who have died, but we’re going to honor their lives by continuing to live ours. We’re going to come together, fight together, and stand together.”

“United we stand,” I said.

My father smiled. “United we stand,” he agreed.