but she doesn’t. And nothing Mom owns
works for me.
These bathroom walls offer no advice,
the green carpet as useless
as grass in a house.
The bulbs around the mirror glare,
illuminating my ignorance.
I’m the star of this one-character show,
but my freckles look like dirt
and the trash can fills up
like failure
—and Mom is driving out of town this very minute.
She is going,
going,
gone.
9.
I call Camille,
visualize her phone
echoing in her empty home.
If she’s shooting hoops, she won’t hear.
If she’s not home, she won’t know
that I’ve called, since I leave no message.
I’m just a phone ringing,
echoing in somebody’s home.
Unanswered.
Unheard.
Alone.
10.
Later that evening,
from my savings
I pocket seven bucks
and catch a ride with Dad, who’s camouflaged in fatigues.
Since Mom’s left town,
he’s on a mission to buy us food
so he won’t have to feed me MREs—
the military’s version
of instant meals.
On the drive, he doesn’t speculate
on what President Bush should do—
or mention anything about anything really.
I guess we’re both in shock.
His silence fills the car. He steers
us toward the store, as if that’s all
he remembers how to do.
The rest plays out like a nightmare,
a slow-motion blur of shame,
that begins with me slinking the aisles
of mysterious hygiene products,
skipping over a box like Mom’s,
hoping not to see anyone I recognize,
looking no one in the eyes,
and avoiding Dad, who’s lost in his head
and wandering frozen foods.
Then I snatch a box of pads from a shelf
and dump too much money at the first register I find
and turn and run
with the guy calling after:
“Hey there!
You! GIRL!”
Dad,
with his special-op skills
and his empty hands
and an unreadable expression on his face,
regards me with my purchase
so visible,
so obvious.
So!
And his voice turns to whisper
as he finds his words
and shakes his head:
“Today is like nothing
I’ve ever seen.”
I freeze at first,
but of course I know
he’s talking about New York,
Pennsylvania,
and D.C.
Not
me.
11.
Our father-daughter time we spend
glued to the tube, as Dad likes to call
our TV—
the FIRST plane
soaring, angling, drifting
birdlike
in the blue-sky, sunny,
ordinary morning.
The plane is low, banking,
turning,
then plunging
its knife
into the north tower.
Debris and papers
fluttering free,
among the shock and disbelief,
SHOUTS,
confusion, panic.
That’s when a SECOND plane
careens
into the south tower.
Cursive
plumes
of
smoke
drawing
an
upward
line.
People exiting,
fleeing,
men and women
workers and visitors running,
stumbling, dazed,
afraid.
Then,
a THIRD plane slams the Pentagon—
fueling angry flames.
C
o
l
l
a
p
s
e
of the first tower.
A FOURTH plane smacks
ground in another state.
The
coll-
apse
of the second tower.
These
things
we
can’t
un-
see.
12.
Morning arrives
regardless
and finds me Momless.
Planes fell from the sky!
You’d think they’d close the schools.
But not here.
Dad says they’re aiming for “normal”—
as if middle school is ever that.
I bet there’s no school for days
in New York.
So like any other Wednesday, it’s
sun up,
get up,
get ready.
One foot in front of the other.
“You know the drill!” Dad barks.
But has anyone found Aunt Rose?
Images from the TV footage replay in my head.
I yank the spotted sheets from my bed