Page 38 of What is Lost

He watched the videos of that Moose and those two jumpers maybe half a dozen times. Watching didn’t get easier. Seeing them reminded him of something else, in fact.

His memories of 9/11 were sketchy. He’d been only fourteen and in school when the first plane hit just about the time they were finishing up the Pledge and moving on to morning announcements. His homeroom teacher had snapped on the TV and tuned to CNN. He remembered how his teacher had gasped and put a hand on her chest, like she was going to have a heart attack. A couple of the girls started whimpering. Mostly, they watched in goggle-eyed silent until the intercom buzzed, and the principal came on and said school was letting out. Buses were already out front. His house wasn’t far, and he and his older brother always biked in together. They peddled home as fast as they could, and what his clearest memory of that ride was the set of his brother’s face: the fury and something much uglier bubbling underneath...

He shoved the memory aside. Instead, plugging the search terms into Google, he kept clicking until he found the CNN video he was looking for: an interview with a woman in New York.

Her hair was black. Her New York accent wasthick. She was crying hard, her mascara streaking her cheeks in black rivulets:And if you go over by there, you can see people jumping out the window. They’re jumping out the windows right now.

As she said that, the cameraman panned to the North Tower—and was just in time to catch the moment the second plane hit.

He watched it again and again. Listened to the screams and the wails and the shrieks over and over. Then he ran more searches. The more he ran, the more he clicked and watched, clicked and watched, clicked and?—

Why are you doing this to yourself?He’d done what he could this afternoon. Forcing those people away from the plane had been the only play. If something had gotten sucked into an engine; if a civilian had managed to squirrel away a gun and started shootingatthe plane…it could have been a catastrophe.

He needed sleep. His eyes, raw and gritty, burned. He checked the time. Four past midnight. What was he doing? He had to get up at six and report back for work at 0700. He wasn’t hungry but knew he should eat. The chow hall would be empty. If he was lucky, there’d be a couple of MREs lying around. Probably the crappy ones no one liked. Forcing down the veggie omelet was an exercise in masochism, but he was past caring. All he needed was calories.

This is not your fault. Those falling men, those jumpers, that boy who was crushed...They aren’t on you. You did your best.

“Take a shower,” he said, aloud, reaching to close his laptop. But then his gaze snagged on a title in a list of his most recent search. A documentary he’d never seen:9/11 The Falling Man.

Don’t.His finger rested on his trackpad.Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t click.

And then, the imp:Go on. You deserve this. You’ve got a lot more blood on your hands than just those people from today. So, go on, you loser.

Three guesses what he did.

Sometime after 0200.

He stood, head bent, both hands pressed against one side of his shower stall. Hot water gushed over his shoulders and thrummed against the back of his throbbing skull. Steam rose in plumes; the shower sluiced dirt from his body. The water swirling down the drain changed from brick red to beige to clear. The sound of water was thunderous yet couldn’t drown out the voice of the photographer from that damn documentary, what he’d said:Like a sack of cement.That was the sound.When those jumpers hit, it was just like a sack of cement.

Get out.His fingertips were prunes. He wasclean. He was also past exhaustion. How he was still upright was a bit of a miracle. He should go to bed.But he couldn’t make himself leave, hadn’t the energy to turn off the water, never mind pull aside the curtain. So, he leaned his forehead against slick tile and let the wall hold him up. The bathroom was filled with fine mist and for a brief moment, it was almost as if he’d stepped aside from time and this world and was, instead, some futuristic traveler in a capsule just popping by for a visit. Out there was real life, one which demanded that he dry off, get some sleep because, in the immortal words of Scarlett O’Hara, tomorrow was another?—

The curtain suddenly billowed. The movement was slight, but he felt it and then just as his brain was catching up with that, a sudden chill sliced through steam as the curtain was pulled aside—and then all he could think of Vivian Leigh screaming her head off as Tony Perkins, in drag, plunged that knife?—

“Roni?” He must’ve left the door unlocked. “Roni,” he said, “you shouldn’t…” Embarrassed, he tried backing up and covering himself with crossed hands at the same time. “Roni, what are you?—”

“Shh.” Her feet were bare. Her body was swathed in a light blue terry cloth robe knotted at the waist. Tugging at the knot, she let the robe slide from her shoulders before slipping into the shower and under the gush of hot water.

“Roni.” His windpipe narrowed to a straw. His gaze roamed her body. Her skin was tanned along her neck and arms but milky and smooth where her uniform didn’t cover. Her legs were long and muscular, her back and line of her spine toned and supple. “Roni, what are you...?”

“I think it’s obvious, don’t you?” She stood only inches away. Water cascaded over her shoulders and streamed over her breasts, which were small but solid, their nipples pink and stiff. “I thought you might need someone to wash your back. I know I do.”

“Roni.” He was so hard, it hurt. His gaze trailed from a splash of crimson staining her collarbone, to the underside of her jaw, and the domes of her breasts. She might be blushing—or perhaps it was only the heat. “Roni.” His voice was husky with desire, but they shouldn’t, he couldn’t allow himself to… “Roni, I don’t think we should?—”

“Please be quiet, John.” She picked up a bar of soap from its dish. “And if you tell me this reminds you of Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone, I might never speak to you again.”

They’d watched that particular film during one very slow night on-call; he didn’t think he’d taken a deep breath for that entire, steamy sequence. “Well,” he said, though his heart was hammering, “it sort of does. Except they had a much nicer shower.” He didn’t mention that Stallone was way moreripped than he’d ever be. But Sharon Stone...she didn’t hold a candle to Roni. Not even close.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Roni wrapped her soapy, slippery fingers around him and squeezed. “What part ofbe quietdon’t you understand?”

He opened his mouth to say…well, something; he wasn’t quite sure what…but then she tightened her grip and pressed her breasts against his chest and stood on tiptoe. She covered his mouth with hers as his fingers found her, his thumb gently teasing her moist and swollen nether lips as she gasped into his mouth—and then anything else he might have said dissolved into a moan.

GOING TO THE SUN

MAY 1999 AND NOVEMBER 2023

In 1999,when he was twelve, John and his family went on a cross-country camping trip. This was in May, about a month after Columbine. One place his family visited was Glacier National Park, an enormous, million-acre wilderness along the northern border of Montana.

They were early enough in the season that snowpack lingered at the higher elevations, though the Going to the Sun Road was open. His parents were hot to drive this because, as their dad explained, the road went over the Continental Divide, which separated the Atlantic and Pacific watersheds. They would even, his dad said, be able to see Glacier’s Triple Divide Peak.From the top of that mountain, water goes to the Atlantic, the Pacific, and up to Hudson Bay.His father had beamed.Kids,you’d have to go to frigging Siberia to see another place like this.

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