The Dark Tide. Andrew Gross
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off the highway at Exit 5, Old Greenwich, and onto the Post Road. Suddenly her car phone beeped. Thank God! Her heart almost leaped out of her chest.
But it was only Paula, her best friend, who lived nearby in Riverside, only a few minutes away.
“You hear what’s going on?” The sound of the TV was blaring in the background.
“Of course I’ve heard, Paula. I—”
“They’re saying it was from Greenwich. There might even be people we—”
“Paula.” Karen interrupted her. She could barely force the words out of her mouth. “I think Charlie was on that train.”
“What?”
Karen told her about the car and not being able to reach him. She said she was heading home and wanted to keep the lines free, in case he or his office might call.
“Of course, honey. I understand. Kar, he’s going to be okay. Charlie always comes out okay. You know that, Kar, don’t you?”
“I know,” Karen said, though she knew she was lying to herself. “I know.”
Karen drove through town, her heart beating madly, then turned onto Shore Road near the sound. Then Sea Wall. Half a block down, she jerked the Lexus into her driveway. Charlie’s old Mustang was pulled into the third bay of the garage, just as she’d left it an hour earlier. She ran through the garage and into the kitchen. Her hope was momentarily raised by a message light flashing on the machine. Please … she prayed to herself, and pushed the play button, her blood pulsing with alarm.
“Hey, Mrs. Friedman …” a dull voice came over the speaker. It was Mal, their plumber, droning on and on about the water heater she’d wanted to have fixed, about some goddamn valve he was having a bitch of a time finding. Tears ran down Karen’s cheeks as her legs started to give out, and she pressed herself to the wall and sank helplessly onto the floor. Tobey wagged his way up, nuzzling into her. She mashed her tears with the palms of her hands. “Not now, baby. Please, not now….”
Up on the counter, Karen fumbled for the remote. She flicked on the TV. The situation had gotten worse. Matt Lauer was on the screen—with Brian Williams now—and the reports were that there were dozens of casualties down on the tracks, that the fire was spreading and uncontained. That some of the lower part of the building had collapsed, and while they were flashing to some expert about Al Qaeda and terrorism, they split-screened to the dark cloud seeping into the Manhattan sky.
He would’ve called them, Karen knew, at least Heather at the office—if he was okay. Maybe even before he would’ve called her. That’s what scared her most. She closed her eyes.
Just be okay, Charlie, wherever you are. Just be okay.
A car door slammed outside. Karen heard the doorbell ring. Someone called out her name and came running into the house.
It was Paula. She fixed on Karen huddled on the floor, in a way she had never seen her before. Paula sank down next to her, and they just hugged each other, tears glistening on each other’s cheeks.
“It’s gonna be okay, honey.” Paula stroked Karen’s hair. “I know it will. There could be hundreds of people down there. Maybe the phones aren’t working. Maybe he needed some medical attention. Charlie’s a survivor. If anyone’s gonna get out, it’s him. You’ll see, baby. It’s gonna be okay.”
And Karen kept nodding back and repeating, “I know, I know,” wiping the tears with her sleeve.
They called over and over. What else was there to do? Charlie’s cell phone. His office. Maybe thirty, forty times.
At some point Karen even sniffled back a smile. “You know how mad Charlie gets when I bug him at the office?”
By nine forty-five they had settled onto the couch in the family room. That’s when they heard the car pull up and more doors slamming. Alex and Samantha burst in through the kitchen with a shout. “School’s closed!”
They stuck their heads into the TV room. “You heard what happened?” Alex said.
Karen could barely answer. The sight of them struck terror in her heart. She told them to sit down. They could see that her face was raw and worried. That something was terribly wrong was written all over it.
Samantha sat down across from her. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
“Daddy took the car in this morning,” Karen said, “for service.”
“So?”
Karen swallowed back a lump, or she was sure she would start to cry. “Afterward,” she paused, “I think he went into the city by train.”
Both kids’ eyes went wide and followed hers, as if drawn, to the wide screen.
“He’s there?” her son asked. “At Grand Central?”
“I don’t know, baby. We haven’t heard from him. That’s what’s so worrisome. He called and said he was on the train. That was eight thirty-four. This happened at eight forty-one. I don’t know….”
Karen was trying so hard to appear positive and strong, trying with all her heart not to alarm them, because she knew with that same unflinching certainty that any moment Charlie would call, tell them he had made it out, that he was okay. So she didn’t even feel the trail of tears carving its way down her cheeks and onto her lap, and Samantha staring at her, jaw parted, about to cry herself. And Alex—her poor, macho Alex, white as parchment—eyes glued to the horrifying plume of smoke elevating into the Manhattan sky.
For a while no one said a word. They just stared, all in their own world between denial and hope. Sam, arms hung loosely around her brother’s neck, her chin resting nervously on his shoulder. Alex, grasping Karen’s hand for the first time in years, watching, waiting for their father’s face to emerge. Paula, elbows on knees, poised to shout and point, Look, there he is! Jump up in glee. Waiting with all the certainty in the world to hear the phone she was sure was about to ring.
Alex turned to Karen. “Dad’s gonna make it out of there? Isn’t he, Mom?”
“Of course he is, baby.” Karen squeezed his hand. “You know your father. If anyone will, it’s him. He’ll make it out.”
That was when they heard a rumble. On the screen the camera shook from another muffled explosion. Onlookers gasped and screamed as a fresh cloud of dense black smoke emerged from the station.
Samantha wailed, “Oh, God …”
Karen felt her stomach fall. She cupped Alex’s fist tightly and squeezed. “Oh, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie …”
“Secondary explosions …” muttered a fire chief coming out of the station, his head shaking with a kind of finality. “There are many, many bodies down there. We can’t even get our people close.”
Around noon
When the call came in, Hauck was on the phone with the NYPD’s Emergency Management Office in the city.
Possible 634. Leaving the scene of an accident. West Street and the Post Road.
All morning long he’d kept a close tab on the mess going on in the city. Panicked people had been calling in all day, unable to reach their loved ones, not knowing what else to do. When the Trade Towers were hit, he’d been working for the department’s Office of Information, and it had been his job for weeks afterward to track down the fates of people unaccounted for—through the hospitals, the wreckage, the network of first responders. Hauck still had friends down there. He stared at the list of Greenwich names he’d taken down: Pomeroy. Bashtar. Grace. O’Connor.
The