Act of God (6 page)

“Look, why don’t you let me take care of the arrangements,” his brother offered. “You just take care of Janet.”

“If I only knew what she wanted,” Rick murmured.

“You try to get some rest,” his sister-in-law suggested. “Just leave everything to us.”

Rick slipped into the nursery and leaned over the rocking chair, wrapping his arms protectively around his wife, hardly aware
that the minister had followed him in and now stood silently in the shadows.

He knew exactly how Janet felt. Jason had been the only survivor of thirteen years of trying to get pregnant. “My brother
is going to make the arrangements for the funeral,” he murmured into her hair. “It’ll be exactly the way you want it, simple
and private, no fanfare, no media, just family and friends to say goodbye to Jason.”

He felt her whole body convulse. “He can’t be alone,” she said in a strange singsong sort of voice that didn’t sound like
her at all. “You know how he hates to be alone.”

“He won’t be alone,” Rick said soothingly, although at this point, he had little faith that there would be any Supreme Being
to look after him.

“No, he won’t,” Janet agreed, in that same frightening tone, “because I’m going to go with him. Then we’ll be together, always.”

“Please, honey, don’t talk that way,” he said in as calm a voice as he could muster, while ever so slightly tightening his
grip on her shoulders for fear she would somehow find a way to slip away from him. “You know you can’t go with Jason.”

“Of course I can,” she replied in the darkness, her words chilling him to the bone. “So you see, tell your brother, there’ll
be no need for any goodbyes.”

At that, the minister felt compelled to step forward. “Dear
girl, don’t despair,” he said. “Jason is in loving hands. He’s with God now.”

Janet Holman peered up at the man as though she had never seen him before. “God?” she asked, clearly perplexed. “God who?”

Jesse Montero had never been much of a churchgoing man. He always figured that his wife prayed enough for both of them. But
on the Sunday after the bombing, he got up, somehow managed to dress himself in his one good suit, and was the first one into
the car.

“What are you doing, Jesse?” his wife asked. “You should be in bed, like the doctor said.”

He waved his bandaged arms impatiently. “I am going to thank God for saving my life,” he said through the dressings that covered
most of his face. “Now, hurry up and get the children. I don’t want to be late.”

The church was filled for the morning mass. The priest was not surprised. It was always like that after a disaster, people
wanting to feel closer to the Almighty.

Margo Montero glanced at her husband, on his knees in the pew, a rosary clamped between his mittened paws. She had slept beside
this man every night for the past sixteen years, through good times, bad times, and very bad times: unemployment, illness,
hunger, homelessness. And this was the first time in all those years that she had ever seen him truly frightened.

Helen Gamble couldn’t stop crying. Aside from a few minor broken bones and some lacerations, the twins, having been released
from Children’s Hospital, were safe and sound in their West Seattle rambler. Helen’s husband, Walter, cut a business trip
short and flew home as soon as he got word. But even with her husband by her side, the tears still flowed uncontrollably.

“It’s nerves,” the doctor told Walter. “Don’t worry, it’ll pass.”

“It’s for all those poor babies who won’t ever come home,” Helen told a reporter from
People
magazine who had played on her sympathy to get a foot in the door. “And for Brenda Kiley, who I owe so much more than I can
ever hope to repay. And for all those other people who died… so many of them. I can’t believe this has happened.”

The first thing she did, after making sure the twins were all right and in good hands at Children’s Hospital, was to go to
Raymond Kiley, put her arms around him, and assure him that Christopher and Jennifer would never know a day without his wife’s
name being spoken.

“They will understand,” she declared, “that there were two women in this world who gave them life.”

“We always wanted kids,” Raymond said. “We were never lucky.”

“You have two now,” Helen assured him.

Brenda Kiley was laid to rest on Monday. Ignoring her own injuries, which had turned out to be far worse than those of the
twins, Helen dressed Christopher and Jennifer in their Sunday best, and took them to the private service for friends and family
only.

Then she went home, put the twins up for their nap, and wept.

Three-year-old Chelsea Callahan, who had escaped injury in the blast that killed her mother, was placed in foster care while
Child Protective Services tried to find a relative who would take her.

The foster family reported that the only word the little girl seemed able to say was “Momma,” and that she cried herself to
sleep every night.

After evaluating the results of an eight-hour surgery, the doctors at Virginia Mason concluded that Betsy Toth would never
walk again. Her fractured spine had been reassembled, but the nerve damage was too great. The twenty-year-old nurse’s aide
would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, and have only minimal use of her hands and arms.

Andy Umanski sat by her side, holding her hand, and watching her sleep. She had slept most of the last five days, which was
a blessing, he decided. The stronger she was when she heard the news, the better. She certainly didn’t look very strong to
him right now. In fact, she seemed so fragile—pinioned, as she was, to a very scary-looking contraption that rotated her whole
body face-up or face-down—that he was afraid she might slip out and fall. At the moment, she was facing up. He leaned over
and rested his cheek on her hand.

“I had a dream,” she murmured, waking for a moment, and seeming to know that he was there. “I dreamed we had a baby boy with
brown eyes and blue hair. Isn’t that silly? I told the doctor there had to be some mistake, but he said there wasn’t; that
this was a special little boy, meant just for us.”

Andy squeezed her hand. “Good for us,” he whispered, and watched as she drifted back to sleep. In the two years he had known
her, and particularly during the last six months, after they had become engaged and began planning their wedding, it was always
the first thing on her mind, having a big family to make up for being orphaned at the age of eight. He sighed heavily. There
would be time, too, but not yet, to tell her that there would be no babies.

Ironically, Shelly Weld and Denise Romanadis, who had shared their last moments of life together, were buried on the same
day; Shelly after a large, boisterous Catholic service, and Denise after a small, quiet Greek Orthodox ceremony.

In both cases, the funerals had been delayed because it had
taken the medical examiner’s office almost a week to reconstruct the bits and pieces of the two women’s bodies. And all they
could do was pray that they had gotten at least most of it right.

They needn’t have worried. Both caskets were closed and both bodies were cremated. Shelly’s parents chose to scatter their
daughter’s ashes over Puget Sound. Denise’s remains were interred in a family crypt.

The mayor was an honored guest at the Weld funeral in Seattle. The governor startled Denise’s mourners by making a brief appearance
at the Romanadis family church in Northgate.

Joe Romanadis, standing with his three surviving children, was overwhelmed when the governor actually came up and hugged him.
It was a great media opportunity. A tape of the moment topped the news broadcasts that evening, and a photograph made the
front page of the
Post-Intelligencer
the following morning.

“Hey dad, you’re famous,” his thirteen-year-old son said.

“I don’t want to be famous,” Joe told him, tears in his eyes. “I just want them to catch the son of a bitch who did this.”

Frances Stocker’s daughter drove her mother from the hospital to Whidbey Island. The psychologist’s legs were in casts up
to her hips.

“There are so many steel pins in those legs,” the doctor quipped, “you be sure you don’t meet up with any ’magnates.’” He
was very proud of his handiwork. Going in, he hadn’t really been sure whether he would be able to save both legs.

“I don’t want to be a burden on you,” Frances said to her daughter. “I’ll go home as soon as I learn how to get around.” She
was discharged from the hospital with a quantity of antibiotics, a prescription for pain pills, and a pair of sturdy metal
crutches.

“Mom, you’re not a burden,” Gail Stocker replied. “You’ll stay until the doctor says you can go.”

“The doctors are overcautious,” Frances said with a sniff. “I’ll be an expert on those stilts by the end of the week.”

Gail sighed. Her mother had never been one to listen to anybody, least of all her daughter. “Good,” she said. “I’ll enter
you in the Boston Marathon.”

“I just don’t want you waiting on me,” Frances grumbled. “You have enough to do, what with your job and all your animals.
I don’t know why you think you have to take care of me.”

“Because I can,” the veterinarian replied. “For the first time in my life, I have the opportunity to really do something important
for you. So let me.”

Frances smiled to herself. Her mother’s daughter, she thought wryly—capable, independent, and stubborn. But in truth, the
idea of being alone right now was not particularly appealing. Just simply knowing that another person was near at hand was
what mattered most of all, especially during the night when it was dark and quiet. When she lay by the hour with eyes wide
open, alternately perspiring and shivering, and wondered why she had been spared, when so many others had not. It was nice
to know then that someone was there, someone to whom she was connected, someone who cared.

It was easier to stay awake than to sleep. In her nightmares, Frances was back in her office, seeing Grace Pauley perched
in the chair just across the desk. Why had the desk protected her, and not that poor woman who had so needed protection? For
the rest of her life, she knew she would see that frail figure, those fragile features, that desperate expression, etched
on the inside of her eyelids.

It didn’t take Carl Gentry long to discover that a broken neck wasn’t necessarily fatal.

“I thought people died when their necks got broken,” the security guard said to the doctor at Swedish Hospital a week after
the bombing.

“Some do,” he was told. “But many don’t. It all depends on the type of fracture. The fact that you remained conscious could
have given you a clue.”

The upper part of Carl’s body was strapped to some kind of a board, and he seemed to be numb from the waist down. He raised
his hands and gingerly touched the medieval collar screwed into his neck and head. “What is this thing?” he asked.

“Torture,” the doctor replied with a smile. “You know that old song about the head bone connected to the neck bone? Well,
that collar is what’s holding your head to your neck, and your neck to your spine.”

“Well, all I can say is it’s giving me one hell of a headache.”

The doctor nodded. “And it probably will for a while. Savor the pain. It’s a good sign; it means not all the nerves were damaged.”

Carl looked at the doctor. “Tell me straight, doc, will I be okay? Will I walk again? Will I— will I be able to function?”

“All indications so far are that I am a superb surgeon, a bit of a miracle worker, actually,” the doctor replied with a twinkle
in his eye, “and that you will in no way damage my reputation.” He saw the uncertainty in his patient’s expression. “The numbness
you’re experiencing should wear off in time,” he added. “How much time, I admit we can’t predict with any real consistency.
It could be as long as several months before you regain certain capabilities, but everything should come back pretty much
the way it was. For now, though, you’ll just have to take my word for that, and be patient.”

The security guard sighed with relief. “Thanks,” he said, a little embarrassed. “I was kind of worried, you know. You see,
I’m only forty-six.”

Four days later, there was a visitor, slipping into his room like a vision. For a moment, he couldn’t quite place her, and
thought perhaps she had come for the man in the next bed. But then she came close and he smelled her perfume, and then she
spoke and he remembered. It was the woman he had met the night before the bombing, the one he had been thinking about the
next day, at the very moment he was being tossed off the porch.

“It took me this long to find you,” she told him, half hidden behind an enormous bouquet of flowers, “or I’d have come sooner.”

“I’m really glad,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, but, well, under the circumstances, I wasn’t really sure,
you know, if you’d want to see me again.”

“Whew,” she declared with a sigh of relief, depositing the flowers on the bed stand and herself in a chair. “I was going to
feel very foolish, rushing to your side like this, if you’d forgotten all about me.”