the river. The boats had worked tirelessly, into the night.
In the following days, though, river traffic had been halted. Unneeded and forlorn, the tugs had stayed bound at their moorings. Marian, her office building too close to Ground Zero to reopen right away—the cleanup, the air tests, must come first—had taken her coffee to the river each morning; standing there, she'd watched the tugs pull halfheartedly on their ropes, as the tide shifted. So much to be done, no way to do it. But now traffic on the river was moving again, and the tugs were needed. Marian imagined them joyously leaning their shoulders into their work.
She thought of Sally, and then of Kevin. Did they know about Harry Randall's death, had they heard? She was hit with a strange thought, a terrible thing to think, but she was thinking it before she could stop herself: most deaths came too soon (and this was a theme of meditation on the September 11 deaths, because so many of the lost were young professionals, young office workers, young firefighters, young cops), but this death, the death of this reporter, had come too late.
With determination Marian turned her mind from that idea. She did not want to wish anyone ill, not even this man who had so disturbed the ravaged earth just as people were attempting, warily, to find footing again.
But her thoughts, pushed away from Harry Randall and not easily managed in this uneasy time, swung back to the missing and the lost. Many were young, yes; but not all. Jimmy had been forty-six.
In Marian's most insistent, most difficult memory, they were both twenty-four. Jimmy stood with her on the rocks under the bridge. Dazzling spring sunlight streamed over them. She knew, had known for some time, that things were not right with Jimmy. Still, she was stunned, unable to speak, even to ask, as he folded his hands on hers, held her eyes with his, and told her goodbye.
She could not now, nor could she then, repeat the words he'd used. It had seemed to her she hadn't understood them, that she had abruptly lost her ability to comprehend language. Jimmy had talked about being someone different, although it had not been clear to Marian whether he was speaking of a desire, or a regret. What she did recall clearly, such a small, strange thing, was the cool dampness on her fingertips from the salt spray that had splashed on his sleeve. She remembered feeling that coolness even after, long after, he'd turned and walked away.
Over the years she had run across him, of course, and been shocked each time at the changes in him, and at the things that had not changed.
On Staten Island she'd seen him in church at Kevin's first communion, and at the ballpark when Kevin's Little League team made the play-offs; he had been a pallbearer nine years ago at Sally's father's funeral, but two years later he had not attended Big Mike Molloy's, though Marian had steeled herself for his presence. Nor had she been the only person who expected him there. Returning from the graveside ceremony to drink coffee in Peggy Molloy's hushed living room, Marian overheard a neighbor asking Tom about Jimmy.
“You were such good friends, Tom,” the man said. “Your father's funeral, I'd have thought he'd be here.”
“He doesn't come out here anymore” had been Tom's answer. “Only sometimes to see Kevin and Sally.”
“No, not just them. Owen McCardle, that he used to work with? I saw him the other day, Jimmy, I mean, on Owen's porch. A week before that big construction fire, it was on the news? Jimmy climbing all that scaffolding. I thought he'd be here, I could congratulate him.”
Tom just said, “Him and me, we lost touch.”
Marian had watched the neighbor turn away, felt his disappointment that the famous Jimmy McCaffery was not going to appear. She'd tried to feel only relief.
Two years after that—five years ago—by heart-stopping accident, she'd run into Jimmy in Manhattan. Rounding a corner, she'd come upon a company of firefighters stowing their equipment after a call. The sidewalk was wet, the air smelled of smoke. The captain turned to answer someone's shouted question and was suddenly face-to-face with her, and it was Jimmy. His face had fleshed out, the hair she could see was gray. Three white scars ran down his cheek, parallel tracks that echoed the folds now etched on his forehead. But his eyes, his eyes were the same. They met hers and held them.
Only when Jimmy had swung himself up onto the truck and the company had driven away did Marian know her hand had reached for him, must have touched his coat, because her fingertips were stained with soot.
Now, as she stood gazing out over the river, another scene—Harry Randall's death—gathered itself and grew bright in her mind. She knew better than to try and stop it; she just watched. Pulling over on the bridge. (You'd have to put your flashers on, so no one drove into your car and got hurt.) Clambering over the cold steel rails. (A difficult climb, made to be so, she imagined, she hoped, to give the climber one more chance, one more reason, to turn away.) Hauling your trembling body up to stand swaying, surveying the enormous sweep of river, buildings, sun, and clouds, until that mighty moment of final choice and the dive, the long, soaring flight into blue, sparkling water. (From such a height, no difference between water and rock.)
She did a breathing exercise to rid herself of the images, and of the twin burdens of anger and guilt. The guilt was for the pall she had cast on the easy joy of her friends' evening. Joy was not an abundant crop lately; where found, it needed to be carefully tended and sheltered from the withering chill of memory.
The anger was at Harry Randall, for killing himself.
Attempting to force the truth about Jimmy McCaffery out of the dark place they'd all, without a word to one another, buried it in; exposing what he'd uncovered, now of all times, to the searing glare of front-page headlines— that had been a terrible thing. Marian had tried to make Harry Randall see that it would be that way.
Her own danger had been secondary to her. The morass opening before her now, the tangle of trouble to herself, was not important. But her work was. And especially now. In these unsteady days, when no one was able to find a firm footing, she could offer a handhold, a refuge, a place to stand. She had tried every way she could think of to make Harry Randall understand how crucial it was, right now, for everyone only to help. She had tried to make him see that truth was not, always, the highest good.
Randall, though, was a reporter. And though she had failed, she did understand his need, in these times, to cling to what he had always believed in.
But when the consequences of what he'd done began to become clear, he should have acted like a man. He owed them all that.
In times like these, no one had the right to suicide.
