engine sound. The bottom fell out of her world that day and the center did not hold, did not pass go, did not collect two hundred dollars.
She’d spent the first few nights with some friends in Brooklyn, before moving to her sister’s house in Jersey. She couldn’t go home, they told her. The area was unsafe. They had to determine if the structure was sound.
Dallas had no funeral because there was nothing to bury. She waited. Eventually, she returned to work. She waited.
Then she waited some more.
Finally, the call came. They told her she could go back to get her valuables. There was still a lot of work to be done; windows to be replaced, apartments to be cleaned. Cosmetic work, the lady on the phone had said. But she could collect her things at least, and hopefully move back in within a month.
Now here she was, back at the place where they’d lived—a place she no longer recognized. Her neighborhood was a monument to sorrow. Its geography was forever altered.
The first thing she noticed (after the wreckage) was the birds. Like any other place, the concrete and steel canyons of the city had their own form of wildlife. Squirrels and rats. Dogs and cats. Flies and pigeons. These were common.
But turkey buzzards were something new.
Laura watched one soar overhead; its black, mottled wings outstretched to catch the breeze. The bird reminded her of the plane. Her breath caught in her throat. The frigid November air encircled her, and she was afraid. The shopping bag in her hands grew heavy, and its contents sloshed around inside.
The buzzard joined the other scavenger birds, circling the devastation from above. She wondered if it was the smell that attracted them, or some deeper instinct. Perhaps they waited on the promise of more to come?
She edged her way around the site, shifting the weight of the bulky, misshapen shopping bag from arm to arm. Workers called to each other from across the rubble. Heavy machinery roared to the accompaniment of jackhammers and the white-hot hiss of acetylene torches. Somewhere beyond it all, where the city still lived, came the echoes of traffic; the comforting, familiar chaos of horns and sirens. The sounds were muted, though. The mood here in the dead zone was palpable, and for a moment, Laura was convinced that the circling buzzards didn’t ride the wind currents, but instead, floated aloft on the waves of despair rising from the wreckage.
She continued on to her building, and found something worse than the carnage. Something worse than the circling scavengers or the noisy silence or the twisted girders or the smell coming from the ruins.
Dust. The sidewalks and the building itself were caked with dust. Her feet left tracks in it as she slowly climbed the steps. It coated her palm when she pulled the door open. The haggard security guard in the lobby was covered in it. Dust floated around him like a halo as he solemnly studied her letter of permission. He had her sign a dusty piece of paper on a dusty clipboard.
She felt a moment of panic as the doors closed behind her and the elevator lurched upward. She set the bag down on the floor, grateful for a moment’s respite. The soft whir of the motor and the cables sounded like the plane.
The dust was even here, inside the elevator. She brushed at the control panel with her fingertips and they came away white and powdery.
Dead people.
The elevator halted, and Laura froze for a moment, unable to go on. The bell rang impatiently, and she picked up the bag, grunting with the effort. She took one faltering step forward, then another. The doors hissed shut behind her.
The dust was much worse here on her floor. The hallway was covered in it, and the beautiful red carpet was now buried beneath gray ash. It clung to the paintings on the wall and coated the mirrors.
The hallway was quiet. Laura started forward. She heard a hoarse coughing echoing from behind her neighbor’s door. Laura stopped and listened. The coughing came again, harsh and ragged, followed by the sounds of movement.
Timidly, she knocked. There was a moment’s pause and then the door opened.
“Laura! Oh darling, it’s so good to see you.” An elderly German lady waddled out and squeezed Laura tight.
“Hello, Doris,” Laura sat the bag down and hugged her back. “I’d been worried about you. How’s Jack?”
“He’s still in the hospital. Cranky as ever. They’re doing another skin graft tomorrow. And his mind... It’s... How are you, dear?”
“I’m—” and then she couldn’t finish because the lump in her throat made speech impossible. Then the tears came, carving tracks through the dust on her face.
Doris held her tight and cooed softly in her ear, swaying them back and forth.
“I’m sorry,” Laura finally apologized, wiping her eyes. “I miss Dallas. It’s just too much.”
“I know, dear. I know. Do you want me to go in with you?”
Laura shook her head. “No. Thank you Doris, but I think I need to do this by myself. You understand?”
“Of course, Laura. You go on and do what need’s doing. I’ll be here for awhile. I’m just sorting through the mess. The windows inside our apartment are broken, and this damned dust is everywhere! They were supposed to put plywood up until they got them repaired, but they haven’t yet. Too many other things going on, I guess.”
Doris coughed again.
Laura squeezed her hand tightly, and then picked her bag up and moved on.
She came to her apartment door and paused. Something was moving on the other side. She put her ear to the door and she heard it again; a light, rustling sound.
Dallas? Was he alive all this time, and waiting for her? Maybe he had amnesia, like in a movie, and this was the only place he remembered.
She put her key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door. The breeze smacked her face. Something fluttered in the shadows. Laura fumbled in the darkness, found the switch, and flicked it, flooding the apartment with light.
A pigeon cooed at her from the windowsill, annoyed at the disturbance. Then it flew away through the broken window. It hadn’t been Dallas. It was just a bird. Laura felt foolish and sad and angry. It hadn’t been Dallas because Dallas was gone. He’d left for work early because Grubman had said there would be a telecom rally and now he was dead and Grubman was dead and everybody else was dead, too. Dallas was gone and there wasn’t even anything to bury because he was dust. Just dust in the wind, like the song.
The apartment was buried beneath it. Piles and drifts of gray ash covered the furniture and the floor, and dust motes floated in the rays of the dim bulb in the ceiling. It swirled in and out of the broken windows, and out the open door behind her into the hallway.
She shut the door and sat her bag down next to the coat rack. The can inside the bag clanked against the tile, and the liquid sloshed again.
Dallas stared back at her from the wall, frozen in time behind the glass frame. Their trip to Alcatraz, when they’d visited Gene and Kay in San Francisco last year. Dallas was laughing at the camera with that smile. It was his smile that she’d fallen in love with first.
In the kitchen, something caught her attention. A yellow post-it note, stuck to the dirty fridge, with her name scrawled on it in his handwriting.
Laura sobbed. She reached out to touch the note, and her fingers came away gritty. It, too, was covered in dust.
“I miss you baby. I miss you so bad.”
The wind howled through the broken glass, kicking up mini-dust clouds all throughout the apartment. The dust swirled toward her, encircling her ankles. Laura turned, and for just a moment, she heard his voice in the wind.
