The Memory of Things

A time stamp of “Tuesday Morning, 9.11.01” heads this chapter. In New York City, the South Tower of the World Trade Center has just collapsed after a terrorist attack. During the attack, hijackers took control of commercial US aircraft and flew the planes into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center, but no one in the city knows what happened yet or why the building fell.

Sixteen-year-old Kyle Donahue walks rapidly across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan with a massive crowd of New Yorkers fleeing the scene of destruction. He evacuated Stuyvesant High School with his classmates and teachers but quickly lost them in the crowd. As Kyle gets to the far end of the bridge, he sees what he first thinks is a large bird about to take flight—then realizes it is a girl in costume wings, perhaps ready to jump. He turns against the flow of people to pull her from the edge; she is incoherent and covered in ash and debris. They hear and feel a huge explosion. Not knowing what else to do, Kyle leads the girl off the bridge, then brings her home to his apartment in Brooklyn Heights, where he lives with his parents, younger sister Kerri, and Uncle Matt.