Remember (30 page)

Besides, who knew what might happen if she was right? Her plan could be life-changing for Bert and the greatest proof of all that Ashley’s experiment was working.

Now it was simply a matter of putting it into action.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Landon was beyond exhausted.

After four weeks at Ground Zero, fatigue and soul-numbing weariness were permanent conditions for him and the others. The days of sifting debris and locating bits and pieces of human remains were taking their toll, leaving many of the rescue workers depressed and disoriented, as though time and life and all sense of normalcy had ceased forever.

The rest of America was getting back to life. Stock market reports were leveling off. Businesses had stopped making drastic layoffs. Anthrax, the deadly disease whose spores had been found in political offices and postal centers after the terrorist attacks, wasn’t in the news as much anymore. Instead, headlines were filled with the impending war effort—Operation Enduring Freedom. Though eighty thousand airline-industry workers had been laid off after the attacks, people were flying again. For most of America, the nightmare of September 11 seemed to be lessening.

But at Ground Zero, the task had only begun.

Officials were saying it could take a year before the debris of the twin towers was completely explored and removed from the heart of New York City. The papers reported that ninety thousand tons of debris had been taken from the site in the first eleven days alone. The actual weight of the rubble pile was more than any of them could imagine.

At the same time, rescue workers had recovered bodies or body parts of fewer than three hundred people. And the farther down into the debris they dug, the fewer human remains they found. However many bodies were eventually recovered, the number would clearly fall far short of the thousands missing, those incinerated when the jets hit, or pulverized when the buildings collapsed. The latest reports indicated that more than four thousand people were missing from the World Trade Center—victims from more than sixty countries.

Landon’s routine had changed little since his first day at the scene. But in the quiet places of his heart, the subtle differences were enough to alarm him. Or they would have been if he wasn’t so worn-out.

He stepped out of the bucket-brigade assembly line and trudged down the block toward Canal Street. Lately he’d been taking his lunches at Nino’s, a diner not far from Ground Zero. Since September 12, Nino’s had been serving free meals for the rescue workers. Volunteers—many of them women—packed the place. They wore paper hats and aprons and sometimes hung around the tables of firefighters longer than necessary, looking for a way to be useful.

Landon walked inside and waited until his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. He scanned the room and found a place in the corner. Nodding to a few firefighters along the way, he stopped at a quiet booth and slid in, his legs aching from his morning shift. A buzzing worked its way through his weary body, and he felt nauseous. His forearms dropped like anchors onto the table. He let his head fall forward.

Where are you, God?

The thought hung in the stale air awhile and drifted away. How long had it been since he’d read his Bible or really shared his heart with God? He knew the problem. Working at Ground Zero made him feel isolated, as though even God couldn’t understand how he felt.

Landon drew a deep breath and coughed. The temperatures outside were dropping, but his body was hot and sweaty in his uniform. He sat up again, running the jacket sleeve across his brow. His faith was still intact. Nothing could shake that. But in all his life he’d never felt so far away from everything that mattered to him—Ashley, his family, his God. Even his reasons for becoming a firefighter seemed foggy, filtered through the heart-wrenching experience of working at Ground Zero.

A blonde volunteer wearing a tight sweater and bright lipstick brought him a glass of water and set it in front of him. She waited by the table for a moment. “You okay?”

The corners of his mouth lifted mechanically. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation. He wanted to eat and get back to work. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Fine? Landon exhaled hard as he watched the volunteer walk away. Nothing could be further from the truth. Desperation penetrated every fiber in his soul because of one very painful truth: They still hadn’t found any sign of Jalen.

Landon had been unable to do the one thing he’d come to do—find his friend dead or alive. Instead he’d taken on the role of a machine—a machine that wasn’t supposed to notice the broken cell phones and money clips and wedding rings mixed among the chunks of debris in the hundreds of buckets that passed through his hands each day. A machine dedicated to retrieving the dead, nothing more.

The blonde volunteer was back. This time she had a tray with an oversized turkey sandwich and a pile of chocolate-chip cookies. She set them down and slid into the booth across from him. Landon lifted his head and studied her. She was maybe twenty years old, but her eyes looked thirty at least. He picked up the sandwich. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” She stuck out her chin, her tone gentle. “You don’t look fine.”

“Yeah, well”—Landon didn’t recognize his own voice—“I can’t find my friend.”

The blonde knew better than to rush into conversation after a line like that. She waited, meeting his gaze head-on. “I’m sorry.”

Landon shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone. Like the others.”

“He was a fireman?” She crossed her arms.

“Yep.” Landon leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. Volunteers had talked with him before, but none of them had sat down and joined him for lunch. The diversion was almost enjoyable.

“I’m Kaye.” She held out her hand.

Landon took it, but only long enough to be polite. He didn’t offer his name. “What brings you here?” He stretched out his legs and accidentally brushed hers in the process.

“I worked at the World Trade Center.” Her gaze fell briefly to her manicured nails. “I took reservations for the restaurant. You know, the famous one at the top.”

Landon took a bite of his sandwich and waited.

“I was supposed to work that day, but my little brother was sick.” She helped herself to a sip of Landon’s water. “No one I knew made it out.”

Sadness came over Landon, and for a long while his eyes held hers. The two of them shared something that everyone at Ground Zero seemed to have in common, something the rest of the world couldn’t understand. A pain, a sense of incalculable loss that only those in the middle of it all could completely grasp. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere to go—no job, you know. So I figured I could volunteer here for a while. At least I’d be doing something to help.”

“I know the feeling.”

Landon finished his lunch and offered the young woman a cookie. There was a comfortable quiet between them, as though meaningless conversation was a luxury of the past. Somehow their shared experience made Landon feel connected to her. She was a complete stranger, but she knew what he was going through, what they were all going through.

“Where are you from?” She took another sip of his water.

“Bloomington, Indiana.” The young woman across from him was the best thing his eyes had taken in since he’d arrived in New York. What had she said her name was?

“You got a girl back home?”

The question pulled up and parked in the front of his mind. He could picture Ashley, the way she felt in his arms, the way being with her this past summer had almost made him cancel his plans and stay in Bloomington. Why hadn’t he called her? Was it because the sound of her voice, one slightest bit of interest from her, would have had him on a plane in an hour?

Landon let his gaze fall to the table. That was exactly why he hadn’t called. And he couldn’t go home now, couldn’t leave until they’d found Jalen. He pulled himself from the memory and stared at the blonde. She was waiting for an answer. “Sort of.”

“I figured.” She stood and took off her hat and apron. “Listen, my shift is up. Wanna take a walk?”

It had been half an hour since he left the work line, but Landon wasn’t on anyone’s schedule except his own. Volunteers were allowed to come and go as they pleased, and none of them needed to be asked to get back to work.

Still, he had to walk back to Ground Zero, didn’t he? What would it hurt to walk with this girl, whoever she was? “Sure.” He slipped out of the booth, stood, and put his helmet back on.

They stepped outside, and the pungent air made them wince at the same time. “The smell of death.” The girl fell in beside him.

“No doubt.” In the light of day, Landon could see that she had long legs and a striking figure. Something about her made him feel almost alive for the first time in weeks.

Halfway to the rescue site they found a bench and sat down. “So . . .” She was wearing old tennis shoes, and she gave him a light kick. “Why’d you become a fireman?”

Landon needed to get back to work. Maybe this was the day. If only they could move a little faster. If only they had more people on the line, they would find Jalen. He brought his thoughts back to the girl’s question. “It was in me, something I found out in college.”

For reasons Landon couldn’t understand, he began to tell her his story, how he’d gone to Texas to study animal science, how he’d planned on coming back to Bloomington and setting up shop as a veterinarian.

“Then I met Jalen.” Landon stared across the street at the recovery effort going on in the distance. “It was like finding a lost brother. We were that much alike.”

The blonde said nothing but moved a few inches closer. Her eyes never left his face.

Landon told her about how he and Jalen had become volunteer firefighters, and he told her about the house fire that changed his life. “Backup units hadn’t made it to the scene, so Jalen and I joined the others looking for victims inside.” He sucked in a quick breath. “Jalen found a woman collapsed just outside a bedroom. The room was fully involved—flames everywhere.” Landon leaned his head back, seeing the terrifying moment in his mind once more. Then he shifted his attention to look at the blonde beside him. “The woman was half dead, but as Jalen carried her out, she screamed for her baby.”

“Her child was still inside?” The eyes of the blonde were wide. She moved even closer to him.

“Yeah, a little girl.” Landon stroked his chin and once more gazed straight ahead. “I grabbed a blanket and beat out the flames in the doorway to her room.” He shook his head. “It was all I could do to find her crib. I carried her outside to her mother, but it was too late.” He turned to the young woman beside him. “The baby was already dead.”

“That’s awful.”

“After that, I knew I couldn’t be a veterinarian. It would never be enough to help animals when people like that little girl need my help.”

They were quiet for a while, watching the trucks pull away one at a time from the mountain of debris. Then, without saying a word, the blonde slipped her hand into his. “Life is too short.”

Shivers of electricity coursed through Landon’s body, emanating from the place where the young woman’s hand was connected to his. Maybe there was life in him after all. There must be if he could still react this way to the touch of a pretty woman.

What am I doing?
The question rattled the windows of his conscience.
I need to get back to work.

But the moment felt bigger than life, more real than anything else waiting for him outside Ground Zero. He angled his body in the direction of the blonde, and before he could make himself stand and walk away, his arms were around her and they were kissing. Oblivious to everything around him, Landon and the woman kissed for a long moment. Finally she drew back and grinned at him. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

Her statement was like a splash of cold water. Had he lost his mind? What was he doing sitting on a New York City street bench kissing a stranger? He gently pulled free of her grasp and uttered a nervous laugh. “Landon. Landon Blake.” He shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

The girl slid closer to him again. “Don’t apologize. I mean, what’s life about if you can’t share yourself with someone? Especially after”—she nodded toward the debris—“after what happened.”

He stared at her. What did she mean by that? He stood and straightened his jacket. “Look, I have to get back to work.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Thanks for listening.”

Before he could walk away, she handed him a card with her name and phone number. Obviously she’d planned on giving it to him all along. “Call me.” She gave him a knowing look. “My family’s out of town. I’m alone tonight.” The expression on her face held no apologies, no embarrassment. “Maybe if we shared the night, it would be easier to spend another day down here. You know?”

Landon folded the card and tucked it into his pocket. “Thanks. You might be right.” He nodded his head once in her direction and set off toward the rescue site. “Nice talking to you.”

When he was a block away, he turned around, relieved to find her gone. What was wrong with him? Did he really tell her she might be right—that two strangers spending the night together would somehow cancel out the stench of death at Ground Zero? He headed toward the rescue site, but something was welling inside him, something that made it impossible to get back to work just yet.

He wandered around a corner and up a mound of twisted concrete and steel to the place where the makeshift cross still stood. Dozens of flower bouquets surrounded its base; hundreds of messages had been scrawled on the steel or taped to the beam. Almost always, people were gathered here. But in this moment, midway through the afternoon, Landon found himself alone.

Suddenly the thing that was welling within him forced its way to the surface. A cry came from him, a cry that was too soft to be heard above the heavy machinery but racked his entire body all the same. He fell to his knees and hung his head. “God, what am I doing? I feel like you’re so far away from me!”

Then, as though God himself had pulled a plug on his emotions, tears spilled from his eyes. He cried for Jalen and for the workers at the restaurant where the blonde had taken reservations until September 11. He cried for everyone buried beneath the rubble and for the senselessness of how all their lives had come tumbling down with the twin towers.