He felt intoxicated by her presence and her touch, and the room began to spin. Ignoring all of his cautions, all of his fears, and everything he’d been brought up to believe, he willingly, eagerly let Marseille take him from one world into another, savoring every moment along the way.
20
Dawn broke on Friday morning.
David awoke in his own cabin, all alone. His father and brothers were nowhere to be seen, but he didn’t mind. He’d been dreaming about the previous night with Marseille, dreaming about where it all would lead next. But suddenly he heard the sound of a floatplane coming across the lake.
David jumped out of his sleeping bag, threw on a sweatshirt, and stepped out into the frosty morning air. Everyone else, it turned out-including Marseille-was already awake and down by the docks as Old Man McKenzie landed his de Havilland first, followed by the others. David ran down to meet them, half-fearing the men might lynch the pilots when they finally taxied over to them.
But before any of them could say a word, McKenzie climbed out of his cockpit and apologized profusely, promising to refund all of their money just as soon as they got back to Clova. It worked. The men were grateful and surprisingly forgiving. What they really wanted to know was what in the world had happened and why McKenzie and the others hadn’t shown up on Tuesday morning, as planned. But no one was prepared for McKenzie’s answer.
“Believe me, gentlemen, we were all suited up and ready to come get you guys when we got word that morning that the Canadian government had just issued a no-fly order for the entire country. And it wasn’t just Canada. All commercial and civilian flights throughout North America were grounded. No one could take off, and everyone in the air had to land immediately.”
“Why? What happened?” David’s father asked.
“A group of terrorists hijacked four commercial jetliners-two from Boston’s Logan Airport, one from Newark International, and one from Washington Dulles,” MacKenzie explained.
David gasped.
“Two of the planes plowed into the World Trade Center,” McKenzie went on. “Another flew right into the Pentagon. The fourth went down in a field in Pennsylvania. Everyone on the planes was lost. No one knew if there were more hijackers on more planes out there, so the entire air transportation system was simply shut down. Believe me, we wanted to come get you guys. But the Air Force was threatening to shoot down any unauthorized plane in the sky. The only planes in the air were F-15s and F-16s, all armed with air-to-air missiles and ready for action. I’ve never seen anything like it. But again, I apologize for what you’ve been through. If there had been any way to get you-or get word to you-please know we would have done it.”
The group stood there in stunned silence. And then it got worse.
“Was anyone in the towers hurt?” Marseille asked.
David noticed that she was ashen, and her hands shook.
“I’m afraid the towers don’t exist anymore, young lady,” McKenzie replied.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean the towers collapsed not long after the planes hit them.”
“Both of them?”
“I’m afraid so,” McKenzie said.
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Are you kidding?” McKenzie asked. “At this point, they’re saying almost three thousand people have died, but there may be more.”
“Three thousand?” David’s father asked.
McKenzie nodded. “There’s a big gap in the middle of Manhattan where the towers used to stand. There’s smoke rising as far as the eye can see. Whole thing took less than two hours, and whoosh, they were gone, both of them.”
Marseille collapsed to the ground and began to sob uncontrollably. David looked to Mr. Harper, expecting him to comfort her. But Marseille’s father just stood there, the blood draining from his face.
Scared and confused, David cautiously knelt by Marseille’s side and gingerly put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay, Marseille. You’re safe. We’re all safe, right? Really, it’s going to be okay.”
But Marseille didn’t respond. She couldn’t speak. Neither could her father. They tried, but the words would not form. She was disintegrating, and her father was standing there like a zombie.
“David,” Dr. Shirazi said softly, his voice faltering.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Marseille’s mother.”
“Mrs. Harper?” David asked. “What about her?”
His father’s eyes welled up with tears. He took a deep breath and said, “She works for a bank, David. She works in the South Tower.”
David couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Mrs. Harper works in the World Trade Center?” he finally asked.
Reluctantly his father nodded.
David sank to the ground and sat for a long while, not knowing what to say.
“Maybe she got out,” he finally said, his lower lip trembling.
21
Spring Lake, New Jersey
The last time David saw Marseille was the day of the funeral.
Charlie Harper simply couldn’t bear the loss of Claire, his beloved wife of twenty-three years. He had no idea how to take care of himself, much less his only daughter, under these circumstances. He wasn’t eating. He was losing weight. He rarely spoke. He was clinically depressed and failing to take his medication. So he resigned his job, put the family house on the market, packed up their belongings, and-unable to bear the thought of boarding a plane-drove Marseille across the country from New Jersey to Oregon, where his folks had a farm near Portland.
And just like that, Marseille Harper disappeared from David’s life.
She accepted a hug from David at the funeral home. But she was so overcome with emotion that she couldn’t talk. She could barely even look him in the eye at the memorial service. After she moved, he wrote her letters. They went unanswered. He called and left her messages. She never called back. Once, her grandfather answered the phone and said Marseille was out and that she’d call back. She never did. He even sent her a box of Junior Mints. There was still no reply. David finally got the message and stopped trying.
Marseille Harper had been his first love. He had given her his body, heart, and soul, and she had given him hers. But in an instant of time, it had all been torn away. The feelings she’d stirred in him had changed him forever, but it was all for nothing. Marseille was lost to him now, and he had no idea how to get her back. He grieved for her but did his best not to blame her. He had no idea how he would have reacted if his mother had been murdered by terrorists and his father had lost his will to function-and perhaps to live. And while he and Marseille had spent an amazing week together, the truth-painful though it was-was it had been only a week. He had no real claim on her. He had no right to expect that she would stay in touch with him, and clearly, wishing wouldn’t make it so.
Quietly, privately, alone in his room-or on the bus, or alone with his thoughts during a study hall or at his locker-he would pray for Marseille and her father. He begged Allah to comfort them and heal them-and him, too. He beseeched Allah to let Marseille somehow find a measure of peace and some good friends who would stand by her and encourage and protect her. He asked Allah to let Marseille remember him and to move her to write back to him.
But as fall turned to winter, David began to lose hope. It was as though his words echoed back from the ceiling of his room, useless and ridiculous. He might as well be praying to the rug on his floor or the lamp on his desk, he concluded, and this only accelerated the tailspin.