September 11, 2016

Nothing was important that day, fifteen years ago, after the towers fell, but everybody was. Dennis was the first person I saw and talked to that day. He’d always said, if something goes wrong, tell three people, and it will feel better. When I walked into his office he read my look and glanced at the small portable TV that sat on a tall black filing cabinet. We watched in silence as the scenes exploded from the tiny screen. All the telephone lines were clogged and I couldn’t reach my brother who could have been on a plane because he travelled frequently for his job. I was worried, I told Dennis, because I hadn’t spoken to my brother in about a week.

I jumped when I heard my phone ringing from across the hall. It was my dogwalker who wanted to know if she should still walk Rosey. Yes, I said. I didn’t plan to leave work early – what difference would it make? She said, all she could think of to do was clean the refrigerator.

I tried my brother again and finally got through. After we each said, I love you, see you soon, I walked back across the hall, to tell Dennis, to feel better. He too was on the phone with his partner Sherry, he had muted the sound from the TV. We’ll make burgers on the grill for dinner, he said and returned the phone to the cradle.

Dennis died three years later, two years after he’d retired to Arizona, where he’d been volunteering for a literacy program. His heart gave out one night after a ride on his motorcycle. I told my brother, who had never met Dennis. I told my dogs, Rosey and Rufus, who had come with me to visit Dennis, when he was home for a week recuperating from bypass surgery.

Today, fifteen years later, as I clean the refrigerator, I think about Dennis as I reach for the pickles I’ll never eat, take the jar to the sink, screw off the lid, pour them into the garbage disposal. I tell Dennis that I’m reaching for the ordinary, like we did that day. I empty the dishwasher and fill it up again. Out in the yard I pull dandelions and look closely at the stray petunia that planted itself in a crack in the cement and wonder how one became a weed and the other, a flower.