Page 60 of 28 Summers
Jake squeezes her shoulder. “I know you’re not,” he says. “I’m proud of you.” The words are meant to be kind, she knows—Jake is as kind a person as God ever created—but they also sound vaguely patronizing. He’s proud of her for choosing Bess over work because he expected the opposite. He’s proud of her, butheisn’t volunteering to take Bess, even though it was fine for him to take last Friday off so he could go to Nantucket on his boys’ weekend.
Ursula could start a fight, but she won’t because they will go around and around and say hurtful things they don’t mean and Ursula will still end up taking Bess to the doctor. She keeps quiet. She’s learning.
She’s smart enough to be the first parent at Dr. Wells’s office the next morning. Ursula doesn’t have a minute to waste—look in her ears, write a scrip, and we’re off. It’s five minutes to nine. The staff is milling about in the back, getting ready to start a day of caring for the children of Washington’s elite. Deena Dick, the receptionist at Dr. Wells’s office, is among the most powerful women in Washington, and she knows it.
Deena sees Ursula enter the waiting room five minutes early and she takes a sustaining breath. These parents. But better early than late, she supposes—her day will end with one of the ambassador wives rushing in at ten past five with her kid in tow, pedicure foam still between her toes. Priorities.
Deena stands up to call Ursula and baby Bess back; the doctor is perpetually late and won’t be here for another ten minutes at least, but they can get the baby weighed and check her vitals. Parents are less impatient once they cross the threshold to an examining room.
Then the emergency line rings.
Ugh,Deena thinks. She picks it up.
“Honey?”
It’s Deena’s husband, Wes.
“What’s wrong?” Deena asks. When Deena left the house that morning, Wes was dressed for work, making Braden and the twins French toast and watching the morning news.
“Something’s happened,” Wes says. “Turn on the TV.”
Deena is confused. A plane hit the World Trade Center? At first, she thinks it’s a small plane, an inexperienced pilot, a rogue gust of wind, maybe. Deena doesn’t have time to turn on the TV—okay, maybe she does, there’s a small one in their lunchroom. She finds CNN. Sure enough…wow, it looks bad. The building is on fire, and people are dead for certain. Deena says a prayer and goes to fetch Ursula and baby Bess.
Bess is on the scale; she weighs nearly fifteen pounds, the nurse, Kim, says. Kim sticks a thermometer in Bess’s ear. Temp is 99.3, so not even a fever. Has Ursula given her any Tylenol drops this morning?
Ursula is distracted by the buzzing of her cell phone in her purse. It must be work. The case in Washington is complicated, with lots of red tape and political ramifications—imagine that. “No,” Ursula says.
Kim eyes Ursula’s bag distastefully. “The doctor will be in shortly.”
Shortlycould be four minutes or forty, Ursula knows. Kim hands Bess back. Ursula holds Bess in one arm and rummages through her purse for her phone with the other.
It’s Jake, probably calling to find out how the appointment went. Well, if he was so keen to know, he could have brought Bess in himself. Ursula ignores it.
Ten minutes later, there is still no doctor and Ursula is getting antsy. It’s 9:15. She hears voices in the hallway, picks up on a sense of urgency—maybe they have a very sick or injured child? Ursula checks her cell phone; Jake has left a voicemail. Ursula doesn’t have time to listen to it. She calls her assistant, Marjorie, at work. Marjorie doesn’t answer, which is highly unusual, as Marjorie is the most reliable and efficient legal assistant in the District.
Another ten minutes pass. This is ludicrous, right? Ursula would stick her head out into the hallway but she suspects that as soon as she complains about how long this is taking, she’ll be bumped back even further.
Ursula’s phone rings again. Marjorie.
“You’ve heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Two planes hit the World Trade Center in New York,” Marjorie says. Her voice sounds funny, like maybe she’s about to cry. Marjorie, cry? She’s the daughter of a World War II colonel.
Then Ursula gets it.The World Trade Center.
“They’re saying between floors ninety-three and ninety-nine of the North Tower,” Marjorie says. “I’m not sure about the South Tower. We’re trying to find out.”
“Oh dear God,” Ursula says. The New York offices of Andrews, Hewitt, and Douglas are on the eighty-fourth floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
Anders.
Ursula lays Bess on the table and tries to snap her back into her onesie with trembling fingers. She goes out into the hallway. Whereiseveryone? Ursula moves down the corridor, deeper into the office. She finds Deena, Kim, and Dr. Jennifer Wells staring at a boxy little TV. On the screen, a plane flies directly into the top of a skyscraper, leaving fiery destruction in its wake. It looks like a movie.
Ursula gasps. Dr. Wells turns around. “I’ll be right in,” she says.
“No,” she says. “I have to go.”
