Absent Friends

But she was tired. Tired from her morning, from all the other mornings this autumn, from the phones that didn't work and the diverted subways and the dust and the children's drawings from South Dakota and Virginia that were taped to schoolyard fences and announced “We Love You, New York.” She was tired from the list of times and places of firefighters' funerals, half a dozen a day, that scrolled silently down her TV screen when she watched the evening news. Tired of having to fight for a place for the Downtown Council at the Lower Manhattan redevelopment table. Of acting strong so that her weary staff would take courage and be able to go on. Of declaring, over and over, that the Jimmy McCaffery she had known—the Captain McCaffery, Marian was always careful to say, to whom so many owed their lives, not just on the basis of his heroic and ultimately self-sacrificing actions in this unprecedented disaster but because of his breathtaking bravery over the years—that this man would never have been a part of any scheme of corruption or cold betrayal, as some were hinting now.

Marian wondered what would happen if she stood and walked out the door. Now, before Laura Stone arrived. She would smile at Elena. Elena would smile back, expecting Marian was going on an errand and would presently return. But she would not. She'd make her way to Grand Central Station and board a train heading north. After a day of sitting perfectly still watching the trees and the towns and the river flash by, she would get off at some nowhere stop in the Adirondacks, find a one-room cabin no one else wanted in the dense shadows of pungent pine trees that blocked the sun. She would clear a patch of earth, turning the worm-rich, fragrant soil so she could plant a garden for next spring. She'd sit wrapped in sweaters and shawls drinking herbal tea as winter shortened the days. She would give up coffee, give up wine and flesh, subsist on the bounty of the earth, which she would nurture, returning, in her labor and husbandry, more than she took away.

And who would miss her, really? Sam? He was wrapped up in the pretty actress he'd met in June—and what a relief that had been, his mooning over Marian having gone on far too long after she had ended their lovely but, from the beginning, finite affair. (She'd seen the potential, and the limits, from their first flirtatious glance; he obviously hadn't. But that was the way it had always been with Marian, since Jimmy. Jimmy was the only lover who had ever left her.)

Her friends—Jeana, Tomiko, Ulrich? Yes, of course, they'd miss her, wonder why she did it, why she'd given up so much, to go live where was that again? and in not very long she'd be more valuable as a topic of endless speculation, conversation, head-shaking, than she'd ever been as a dinner companion, a pal.

Sally? Kevin? Yes, they would feel a loss, an empty place in their lives, if she were gone. But Kevin was young; his life spread boundlessly before him, an infinite number of beckoning choices. She was his aging aunt, and not even that by blood: treasured, to be sure, but occupying a place in his life smaller and less vital with each passing year. And Sally had so many friends, and Sally had Phil. And perhaps—Marian was startled to find she was permitting herself this thought; it was a sign of the difficulty of the times that her self-discipline had not been powerful enough to forbid it—perhaps Sally would be in a small way relieved to have the twenty-year war between Marian and Phil finally ended, as Marian ceded the territory and went into exile.

And her work? Well, it was true some of the projects she was involved in would crumble without her. MANY might even collapse. That thought stirred her, made her sit up, straighten her shoulders. That would be bad. Clearly, bad. This was important work. Helping. Giving. Saving. She left her desk, went to get more coffee. And stood holding her mug at the coffee machine, confused as to which pot to take from, the fresh or the old, the decaf or the strong, and what to put in it, and how much she'd been intending to have.

Marian was halfway through her coffee when Elena buzzed to tell her Laura Stone had arrived. Marian put down the proposal she had been reviewing (a graphic artist who had escaped from the south tower's sixty-third floor with his life but none of his materials was asking for a grant to rent new space and to restock; Marian was inclined to approve the application provided the space he selected was below Canal Street). She shrugged on her suit jacket, gave her glasses a quick polish, and arranged the muscles of her face into a comforting, reassuring smile, but not one too broad or welcoming. Laura Stone knew that Marian had not wanted to give this interview and would not trust her if Marian pretended to be pleased that she was there.

So she put on a smile that said, We can agree that truth is important, and the search for it equally so; come, let us reason together.