When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

“You have a lovely home,” Harry says, lying. I don’t know him too well but I’m pretty sure he’s never seen a completely laminate-paneled living room. “Is this all, um, real wood?” he asks.

“No, laminate. Isn’t that amazing how real it looks? So where in England you from, anyway?”

“London.”

“Well, well, well. Let’s drink to that. Donna, get this man a gin and tonic! That’s what you drink over there, right?”

It’s clear that my dad’s already been at the red wine and Coke. He must have started early, probably after the first plane hit.

“He’s British! Donna, pretend you’re educated! Get out the good china, the British are coming!” He half laughs and half yells to the kitchen, where Ma is putting bologna on white bread and pulling bright yellow cheese slices off plastic sheets. Harry’s looking at her through the hatch and I can tell that he’s never seen cheese in that format. If he opened the kitchen cabinet, he would’ve found the spray cheese in a can. But that’s only for special occasions. To make rosettes on Ritz crackers as appetizers before Thanksgiving dinner.

“Just a cup of tea would be lovely, thank you.” Poor Harry.

“Very fancy, OK, Donna, get this man some tea. Do we have tea?”

“What is this, the fucking United Nations? I got coffee, that’s what I got. Oh, wait, I have Sanka. You want a Sanka?”

They’re terrified. The sandwiches and the Sanka, the yelling and the jokes. This is too big and all they can do is keep repeating their lines from before it happened. Dad’s going to do his stand-up routine and Ma’s going to clean the kitchen because if we all keep doing what’s normal then everything will be OK. Except that this massive tragedy is unfolding right outside the window and the planes are crashing every ninety seconds on TV. And now I’m here with this guy from the coffee place and my parents are so crazy that even if I wanted to cry, or scream, or just process what happened, I can’t. I have to follow the script too so they don’t lose their shit. When my hands start to shake I just put them in my lap until they stop.

The news gets worse. The Pentagon, the crash in Pennsylvania, it all blends together. Harry plays cards with my dad. It’s strange that he’s here but it helps because my parents are trying to act normal. But I shouldn’t have brought him. It seemed right in the moment but now all the City’s bridges are locked down and the ferry’s not taking passengers into Manhattan so he can’t get off Staten Island. I don’t know what we’re going to do with him. I need a drink. I find some jeans and a T-shirt in a box under my teenage bed and I get one of Frankie’s old shirts for Harry.

“Ma, have you heard from Frankie yet?” I ask my mother.

“No.”

“There probably won’t be cell service now for a while. Did he go to work today?”

“How should I know, what am I, friggin’ Tom Brokaw with your breaking news?” She brings out more sandwiches and drinks and goes back to the kitchen, keeping herself busy with last night’s dishes.

Ma was hurt that Frankie moved out to live with Matty a couple months before. It was time, he was nineteen. He worked at Foot Locker in the mall and delivered pizzas at night. He still came by every day before he went to the pizzeria. Brought Ma her favorite donuts. But he grew up and she wouldn’t forgive him.

“He’s probably on his way home. I’ll try him again.” I dial his cell. Still nothing, not even a ring. But he didn’t work in the City and he never called anyway. They’re probably closing the mall so I bet he left work to go hang out with Michelle, his girlfriend, and smoke a joint and they probably would be here any minute. Right?

Right?

The phone in the kitchen rings. Once, twice, three times. Ma puts one hand on the receiver and waits. She keeps her hand there and doesn’t pick up until suddenly she does and answers, “Yeah,” not “hello” but “yeah,” as if she’s in the middle of a conversation. She walks over to the sink, the extra-long phone cord spiraling behind her. She holds the phone against her ear with her shoulder and keeps drying the glass in her hand.

A pause. The silence of held breath just before the exhale into the inevitable. “Yeah,” she says again, gasping. She drops the phone and the glass at the same time. Her knees buckle, she falls. The glass shatters into a million diamonds on the linoleum. My father runs to her. Blood and glass. “Donna? Donna!? Donna!!! Donna?” Over and over Dad just keeps yelling her name; first like a question, then a threat, then a plea. Like if he could just get loud enough it would undo this, whatever it is.

My heart stops. I pick the phone up off the floor. “Hello?”

“Gigi…” Matty, crying. He can’t find Frankie. Then there are other words. Interview. High up, ninety-something floor. Voicemail on Michelle’s phone. Did he come home?

Did he come home?

The phone’s attached to the wall in the kitchen and I catch my reflection in the glass of the frame of Frankie’s high-school graduation photo. That’s how much she loved him. She put his picture in a frame.

Harry at my shoulder, hand on my elbow. “Gigi?”

“Hold on, Matty.” My voice is steady. The shrieking in my head isn’t coming out of my mouth. I hold the phone to my chest the way you do when you tell someone to hold on. As if this is a normal call, as if I’m going to ask everyone to be quiet in the background and then I’m going to get back on the phone and say, “Sorry about that, anyway…”

I look at Harry and he looks at me. “My brother,” I say. Over Harry’s shoulder, through the kitchen doorway, I can