Chapter 1 Cont'd

That is how I spend that entire day. Judy and me staring at the television in silent awe. The planes crashing, the people jumping, and the towers falling all right before everyone’s eyes. No sparing the weak. Everyone is able to watch. Talk about traumatizing. Then it hits me. Oh my God, my sister is going to die before I ever get to see her again. I haven’t even spoken to her since I was like 10 years old. Now I’m never even going to get the chance to tell her that I’ve always loved her. I’ll never get to tell her how much I looked up to her beauty. How I always was so intimidated by her grace. I’ll never get to explain myself as to why I wouldn’t come see her for the family weekends when she was in college. It has nothing to do with my mother being overprotective. I was an eight year old hermit. I never meant for her to feel unloved. I toiled with the idea of her sitting there; the only one without a little sister to show off for these weekends. I try to call her and no one is home. I try to call her work and no one is there. Cell phones aren’t accepting calls right now. I know this is it. She has died, and she’s never gotten to look at a face that is just like hers.
Judy tries to comfort me all day. My best friends, Jennifer and Maria, also try to help me out. Even the girl that just started working with us is trying to console me. Nice effort, but I still
think that she’s a complete idiot. Probably why I have such bad karma. It all stems from this piss-poor, holier-than-though attitude.

Somehow I manage to put in an entire shift at work without even really noticing that I was there, but all of a sudden it’s time to go home. Was I even supposed to work today? I go back to my apartment. I live in a dodgy part of town between two sets of projects, but I absolutely adore my place. An entire wing of an old Victorian house for only $300 a month. You can’t beat that, even if I can’t take my own garbage out unless it’s the middle of the afternoon and I periodically hear my neighbors demonstrating their proficiency with firearms. It’s in the constitution for them to have their guns. Who am I to judge? I like to assume that if I’m ever being attacked they will again show off their firearm prowess and come to my rescue.
My three cats greet me at the door. I swear they know when I’m upset. I give them all some love, put on my kettle, and flip on the television to obsessively watch more CNN. This has got to be the wildest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The phone rings and it’s my mother. She’s fearing the worst about my sister as I am. My Dad wasn’t up for many father of the year awards, and his ex wife went through a rebellious period, so she pretty much raised my half sister and brother as her own.

“Olivia, please tell me you’ve heard from your sister,“ she wails.
“No, I haven’t and I can’t get through to her either. What the Hell is going on?”
“This is insane. I’ve never seen anything like this before. You do realize you are NOT going out there next week, right?”
“Mom! You don’t understand. This is not up for debate. If my sister is OK I HAVE to go. I’m sorry. I know how difficult this will be for you, but I absolutely must go,” I said. “I really don’t even want to talk about this right now without knowing what is going on with Christine. I’ll call you as soon as I talk to Christine.”
“Fine! Enjoy explaining this to Tom” she yelled and then hung up on me. Did my mother just hang up on me? Great. That went well.

I hung up the phone and turned my computer to check my mail. To my joyous surprise there is a message for me from my sister’s address. I try to not get too excited because she may have written it last night. I open it. It’s from today!

My Dear Little Sister,

I was afraid that you were worried about Greg and me, but we are fine. I haven’t been able to get many calls out, but email still works. I was visiting Greg in his office at the World Financial Center when everything happened. They told us to stay where we were, but we decided to go outside. When the towers collapsed, we ran down the street from the debris and jumped into a hotel lobby. I’m so glad we were together the whole time and I didn’t have to worry about where he was.
Well, my dear, I have many other letters to write. I know everyone must be freaking out. I just wanted to let you know that we are fine and that I’m still looking forward to you coming out to see us, baby sister. Hopefully you’ll still be able to get on your flight. I love you!