A Widow's Walk: A Memoir of 9/11 - Hardcover

Fontana, Marian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743246241 ISBN 13: 9780743246248

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2005

Synopsis

A playwright and comedienne whose firefighter husband was killed in the September 11 attacks traces the year after his death, during which she struggled with the challenges of single parenthood, attended advocacy meetings with such figures as Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki, and learned to find humor in the face of grief and loss. 60,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

Marian Fontana, an accomplished comedienne, actress, and writer, is the president of the 9/11 Widows and Victims' Families Association. She lives with her son, Aidan, in Staten Island, New York.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

1

The Day

My eyes creak open and try to read the red numbers, blinking 8:15 A.M. A surge of panic rushes through me. I am late for my son's second full day of kindergarten. I should have laid out his clothes and packed his lunch the night before, but the organizational gene is recessive in my family. I scramble into his room to find him a clean shirt.

"Aidan! Wake up!" I yell. Aidan is sleeping in the middle room of our small floor-through apartment. When he was a baby, I would tiptoe through his room so carefully, it reminded me of scenes from the movie Kung Fu, trying to walk on rice paper without making an indent. Even at five years old, Aidan still looks like a baby, his mouth hanging wide, cheeks flushed red like tempera paint. I watch the soothing rhythm of his chest rise and fall and I stop to fill my own lungs with gratefulness.

"C'mon! We're late!"

Aidan stirs and I rush into the kitchen to make lunch and call Dave at the firehouse on Union Street, eight blocks away. Last night we tried to have our usual eleven o'clock phone call, but the Squad's PA system was broken. Everything was accompanied by a deafening sound resembling a bee caught in a microphone.

"I can't talk," he'd said. "This noise is driving me crazy."

"Ten more hours and you'll be on vacation for a month," I reminded him before hanging up. Dave wasn't supposed to be at work, but I had insisted he switch shifts to have our anniversary off.

Dave was excited by our plans to go to the Whitney Museum today. Now that Aidan was in school, he could pursue his art again, maybe even apprentice with someone well known. He was also considering massage school or going back to college to get a master's in history. He had lists of projects and ideas scratched on paper all over the house, ways to supplement his meager income until he was promoted.

Aidan shuffles into the kitchen and sinks into a chair. "I'm tired," he complains, plopping his head into his folded arms. I kiss his hair, inhaling the scent of sweat and baby shampoo, and dial the firehouse.

"Squad One. Firefighter Fontana speaking."

"Hey. Happy anniversary," I say.

"You, too." He sounds exhausted. Ever since we returned from Cape Cod three weeks ago, Dave has been working extra shifts to pay back the firefighters who worked for him so he could go away. Smearing peanut butter on potato bread, I ask him when he will finish.

"I just have to shower," he answers. I picture him grimy and smelling of smoke. When he "caught a job" and worked at a fire, he came home smelling like the bottom of a fireplace. Sometimes the sooty smell could linger for days, Q-tips turning black when he cleaned his ears.

"Are you sure you're done?" I ask, prying the jelly jar from the refrigerator shelf. Firefighters work two twelve-hour and two nine-hour shifts a week. At the end of his shift, he cannot leave until a member of the new crew arrives and is prepared to take his place. Since Dave is the only firefighter who lives in the neighborhood, he is often the last to go. Despite my complaints, Dave stays late so the other firefighters can begin their lengthy commutes home to Long Island, Rockaway, upstate, and Staten Island. One firefighter travels as far as Harriman State Park.

"Yeah, I'm done," he answers. I can tell he is as excited as I am to be together today. My neck hurts from squeezing the phone, and Aidan is asking for a waffle.

"I'm late. Where do you want to meet?"

"Connecticut Muffin in ten minutes?" he suggests. I can hear the deep male voices in the kitchen, the coffee cups clanking into the sink. Some firefighters linger and talk to the incoming crew before they head home, to miss the rush hour and catch up with their friends. Usually they want to know about what kind of runs everyone went on the night before.

"Okay. I'll see you at Connecticut Muffin in ten minutes," I repeat, and hang up. That's it. No profound discussions. I can't even remember if I told him I loved him. We always did, but ingrained habits are forgotten sometimes, like leaving the coffeepot on or forgetting to lock the door.

8:36 a.m.

Outside the sky is so blue, it looks as if it has been ironed. Aidan is walking slowly, a squeeze yogurt hanging from his mouth. There was no time for waffles, and now I guiltily rush him the three blocks down 7th Avenue to his school.

At the corner near the school, local politicians are shaking voters' hands while fresh-faced college students hand out flyers. It's Election Day. I'd nearly forgotten. I try to get Aidan to walk faster, but he drags behind me like luggage.

"Can we get an Anakin Skywalker toy after school?" His little hand is warm and clammy. Even on busy days, I enjoy how it feels.

"Uncle Jason is picking you up."

"How come?"

"It's Daddy's and my anniversary today."

"Are you going to have a party?"

"No. We're going out in the big city."

"Can I come?"

"No. You have school."

"Can Jason buy me an Anakin?"

If Aidan were a dog, he would be a retriever. I convince myself that his obsessive single-mindedness will serve him well someday as we cross the playground to the school door.

The kindergarten room is noisy and stifling. Aidan bounces toward his seat, oblivious to the little girl next to him crying noisily and clutching her father's pants leg. I kiss Aidan good-bye on top of his head. His hair is so soft it feels like a new cotton pillow.

"I love you," I say.

"Love you, too," he answers distractedly.

Outside in the playground, I peek in the window. It is only the second full day of kindergarten, and I am nervous Aidan will miss me. A few other children are crying, but he is talking to a curly-headed boy next to him, his face expressive and sincere. His eyebrows bounce up and down like caterpillars dancing.

The air is warm and in it lingers the smell of summer. I spot my friend Kim, leaning on her blue Volvo and waving at me. Kim speaks crisply, filling her sentences with words I have to look up in a dictionary.

"I'm so glad I ran into you!" Her wide cheeks spread into a smile. "I'm leaving for the Congo on Friday and I wanted to have a chance to see you."

Kim is a former member of my weekly writing group; she wrote elegant travel essays, until she left last year. Everyone in the group writes from experience. While I spent my teens poured into Sassoon jeans and listening to Led Zeppelin at keg parties, Kim contemplated the evils of apartheid on the dirty back roads of South Africa.

I envy the exotic writing assignments Kim gets but know that I am not capable of such high adventure. Writing and performing one-woman shows about the curious urban characters I witness on the F train is about as intrepid as I want to be. We chat for a while until I suddenly realize that I am late to meet Dave.

Arriving at Connecticut Muffin breathless, I am surprised that Dave isn't already there. I spot Tommy behind the counter and smile. The soft-spoken black man in his late fifties hands me my coffee before I even ask for it. He chuckles and shakes his head when I tease him about smoking.

"Okay. . . okay. For you, I'll quit," he says.

On the benches outside, Park Slope mothers perch behind Maclaren strollers. I find a seat near the sidewalk and sit to wait for Dave. I remind myself to vote and smile in guilty pleasure at having the day alone with Dave. Unable to afford babysitters, we have struggled to balance the heavy tray of work, parenting, friends, writing, exercise, sex, and shopping. With Aidan in school, the possibilities seem endless.

I stir from my reverie to notice that the people around me are speaking animatedly. I hear the words "airplane" and "Twin Towers" when

my friend Lori walks over. She is a short, blond ex-dancer with two

wild boys and a face that's seen too much sun. She teaches aerobics at

the Dance Studio where I worked as a gymnastics instructor for eight years.

"A plane just crashed into the Twin Towers," Lori says. People are pointing at a plume of smoke cutting across the sky like a black arrow. I picture a small biplane wedged into the top of the tower like a candle pushed into a cake. I wonder for an instant if Dave went. After all, he would never want to miss a fire, and I'm sure Squad 1 would go. Squad 1 is the first of seven squads that, along with five rescue companies and a Hazardous Materials Unit, constitute the highly trained division of the Fire Department known as Special Operation Command. SOC companies handle confined-space rescues, collapses, hazardous material spills, terrorist incidents, and more.

No, he's not there, I tell myself. He said he was done. Someone came in for him and he was going to shower. It's our anniversary. He's probably at home waiting for me in bed, ready to fool around before we go to the city.

I stand up.

"Where are you going?" Lori asks, concerned.

"I think Dave might be waiting for me at home." Dave hated that I was always late. Because I'd taught in the neighborhood, I could never make it down 7th Avenue without stopping to talk to parents, kids, and friends. Dave dubbed me "Pope of the Slope" and often insisted that we take the quieter 6th Avenue so we could get places on time.

More people are looking up over the horizon toward Manhattan at a second plume of smoke that is widening and bleeding into the blue sky.

"Let me come with you," Lori insists, following me down to 4th Street, to the ground-floor steps of our small brownstone apartment.

"Dave?" I yell down the hall, but everything is eerily quiet. In the living room, Lori turns on the television and I am stunned to see the top of one of the towers engulfed in flames, like a giant metal matchstick. My heart beats faster as I notice the second tower is also on fire. Footage of a plane crashing into the second tower plays and I am confused. Is this a stunt or some kind of camera trick? What is happening?

My breath catches in my throat as I watch peo...

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0743246241
• ISBN 13: 9780743246248
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432