The only option was Canada. Nothing connected to her life now. Leaving without a trace.
She stayed put. The TV moved on to other families, other grief. She limited herself to two meals a day. Five dollars for a banana and a granola bar in the morning. Another five for a cheeseburger with as many condiments as she could get on it in the evening. Her dress pants already felt looser. The Runaway Diet, she thought. Perhaps she could market it someday. And then she hated herself even more for having the thought.
She’d spent a few more precious dollars on a travel pillow. Then a garish shawl that was the closest thing to a blanket the store sold. Soap, deodorant, and aspirin for the near-constant headache she couldn’t seem to shake. The store didn’t sell shoes or underwear—the two things she needed most. So she walked around in her socks and washed out her underwear in the sink, drying it with the hand dryer as best as she could.
On the afternoon of the third day, she shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she looked around from within the folds of her hood. Each of the permanent travelers, as she’d come to think of them, had their own section of the station. A space that was respected as if it had curtains around it. As night crept in, she placed her backpack on the floor with the pillow on top and wrapped herself in the shawl. The floor was uncomfortable and cold. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand it, but eventually, she fell asleep.
She dreamed of her family. Not the way it was but the way it could’ve been if she hadn’t screwed so many things up.
And then someone shook her awake.
“You’re on that Montreal bus, right?” It was one of the older women who’d been there the whole time. She was missing a few teeth, and her hair was thinned out like a man’s.
Kate sat up. “That’s right. Why?”
“It’s leaving in ten minutes.”
Kate’s heart accelerated. Her head spun to the television. There it was on the ticker. The travel ban had been lifted. There had been no other incidents. The explosion was definitely the result of a gas leak. They were safe. For now.
She hastily shoved her new belongings into her backpack. She had a brief moment of panic when she couldn’t find her ticket. Then remembered she’d put it inside her sweatshirt pouch along with her money in order to keep it safe. The woman who’d woken her eyed the bills Kate was unable to hide when she pulled the ticket out.
She stuffed them away again. “Do you know what gate?”
“Twenty, I think.” The woman pointed with a grizzled hand. She smelled vaguely of sweat and pee. But Kate likely smelled the same. Who was she to judge?
“Thank you for waking me.”
“You’d better hurry.”
Kate turned to rush to the exit, but something held her back. Did this woman actually know who she was? Was her next call going to be to the police? Or was she just starving? For attention, for food, for somewhere to go herself?
Kate reached into her pouch. She touched a bill, crisper than the others. One of the fifties she’d promised herself she wouldn’t break until it was absolutely necessary. Before she could talk herself out of it, she handed it to the woman and pressed it into her scratchy hand.
“What’s that for?”
“To thank you for waking me. I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell.”
Kate thought about stopping, trying to extract some greater promise. But the bus driver was looking around to see if anyone else was coming. She turned to the woman and said, “Thank you,” then crossed the station just in time to catch her bus.
The Triple-Tenner You’ve Never Heard Of
by TED BORENSTEIN
Special to VANITY FAIR
Published on OCTOBER 29
After a year of covering the Triple Ten tragedy, I thought I’d heard it all. That I knew it all. Every name. Every story. I’d literally helped write the (memorial) book, after all, and had spent the last six months of my life reliving each of their stories, cataloging the grief.
Then, shortly after the six-month anniversary, a new name began to circulate around the survivor community. That name was Franny Maycombe.
I first heard of her at a fund-raising event for the Compensation Initiative, the organization that was established to dole out the donations that poured in from around the world for the victims. Its goal is something they call “total compensation”—they want to make sure every victim’s family receives the money they would have had but for the tragedy. A formal, legal way of saying they want to do right by everyone.
What that means in practical terms is that more money is always required.
“When you add everything up,” says Jenny Chang to me one night, “we’re talking about as many as twenty thousand people who’ve been affected. Not just those who died and their families but the thousands who were injured and their families. Total compensation means you make everyone whole again. Everyone.”
Jenny Chang is a twenty-three-year-old whose life was already marked by tragedy before she lost her father on October 10. Jenny’s mother died of breast cancer when she was sixteen. An only child, she and her father were close. Though she was accepted to several prestigious schools with a full scholarship, she decided to attend the University of Chicago to stay close to home.
Midterms were approaching in her senior year when her father died. Since then, Jenny has completed her degree in astrophysics and put off the many internships she’s been offered to work
