The Memory of Things

Kyle and the girl recover from the fortune-telling incident as Karina chats with them and offers them good Polish food. The girl and Karina are easygoing and accepting of one another. Kyle shares that Uncle Matt has been doing more with memory work and communicating.

Kyle lies down to rest while the others are still in the kitchen and falls asleep. The girl wakes him with two cookies from Karina, who went home. Uncle Matt is resting. They chat briefly, and Kyle finally kisses her. They kiss for a long time.

From the girl’s perspective, she feels from the kiss that Kyle “never wants [her] to go” (202). He tells her he might love her.

They talk about music, with Kyle sharing the groups he likes. She convinces him to play a song on his guitar, which he has not played in a year since his “dad wasn’t a fan of [him] wasting time on music” (205). Kyle plays “Beautiful Day” by U2 and sings it as well.

Kyle notices his dad’s look of approval and gratitude when he helps get Uncle Matt situated for bed. Afterward, his dad finally meets the girl. He is kind and says he will take her to the authorities soon. However, the president will visit Ground Zero the next day, so it will have to wait. He asks Kyle if there wasn’t some “shred of identification” on the girl after Tuesday morning; Kyle tells him there was none and does not reveal the washed-out ID card. Before he goes to bed, Kyle’s father tells him to call Social Services the next day. In his room, Kyle strums the guitar and thinks about trying out for the jazz band when school resumes. Later, when Kyle’s father and uncle are asleep, the girl comes to visit.

She wants to kiss him but feels that will make time fly too quickly; she knows now that they have little time left together: “He thinks I don’t know, but I do” (211). First, she rounds the room, touching objects and looking closely at them: “Gathering pieces of him to remember” (211). She moves to his bed, and they kiss again for a long time.

The time stamp is now “Early Friday, 9.14.01” (214). Kyle wakes too early; it is not dawn. His father is in the kitchen preparing to leave for the site. Before he goes, Kyle’s father tries to warn Kyle about not getting too caught up in feelings and emotions with the girl: “And I’ve told you, you can’t keep her here” (216). He is worried that the overwhelmingly emotional week makes it seem like he feels more strongly about her than is realistic. Kyle is embarrassed and irate. He showers and decides to call his friends about their lost loved ones.

Kyle and the girl bring Uncle Matt along for a walk outside. They go to the Promenade, where the girl lights two candles to place with all of the other makeshift memorial items left to show love and care for those lost or missing. Kyle does not ask about the candles, but he suspects both of her parents may have died in the attacks. He notes American flags draped nearby and lighters placed for those bringing candles, and he feels a shared grief and camaraderie with fellow New Yorkers.

The time is “Friday Evening, 9.14.01” (226). Mom and Kerri hope to fly home the next day. Uncle Matt watches an old Dateline news drama on TV. Kyle gets some cookies for them to share, and with some encouragement from Kyle, Uncle Matt manages to raise a piece of cookie to his mouth on his own. Kyle is thrilled and begins to go tell his father. Then he notices a news program with host Stone Phillips. The program aired initially several weeks prior; in it, Phillips interviews a man with the last name of Marconi.

Kyle knows instinctively that Mr. Marconi, a bigwig lawyer for one of the boys accused in the Washington Square rape case, is the girl’s father; the name Marconi matches the “M CC II” on the ID card. In the interview, Mr. Marconi “seems passionate and sincere” (231), genuinely believing that his client is not guilty. At one point, he becomes emotional; the interview cuts out; when it resumes, Marconi, emotional, says, “All I’ll say is this: Yes, I lost my wife recently—a few weeks ago—to ovarian cancer. And my daughter, Hannah, and I, we—” (232). Marconi regains his composure enough to indicate that though his beloved wife and daughter thought his taking the defense was wrong, he believes in the boy anyway.

In Hannah’s perspective, she pages through the magazine she’d found of the boy; inside is her father’s picture. Fearing that he is dead, she tears it up.

Kyle approaches her and calls her by name. Hannah remembers everything. She cries at length because she yelled terrible things at her father on Tuesday morning before he went to work in One World Trade Center about believing the accused boy. Her father worked on the 63rd floor. Hannah is convinced that he is dead. Kyle tries to tell her to hold onto hope; there is a chance he got out.

Kyle wants to tell his father, but Hannah asks that they search online for pictures of her mother first. Hannah’s mother, Danielle, was the Creative Director of the New City Ballet. The resemblance between Hannah and her mother is striking to Kyle. Among the photos, Kyle sees one where Hannah appears dressed in a white costume; Kyle notes the wings are not a part of the costume, and Hannah tells him they were used only in ads. She tells him that her mother grew too sick to play Odette in Swan Lake, so Hannah danced it for her: “It was the last time she ever saw me dance” (241).

Hannah tells Kyle how she, her mother, and her father would often go to a favorite café, Le Petit Pain on Vesey Street, very near the Towers. Hannah’s parents were married there and celebrated their last anniversary there; this scene surfaced in her memories as champagne glasses and gift boxes. They had breakfast there every Tuesday morning before work and school. At the mention of school, Kyle gives Hannah the ballet shoe charm and reveals how he washed her ID. She tells him that her parents gave her the charm at the little café when she got into the ballet school. Kyle cannot wait any longer and goes to tell his father.

Hannah tells Kyle that her mother lived for nine months after her diagnosis. She cut her hair short when her mother lost hers. After she died, Hannah’s father no longer went to the café as it was too emotional for him; Hannah continued to go as she felt close to her mother there. On Tuesday, after a bad argument about his client, Hannah was at the café. She saw the second plane go into the building and ran toward it, thinking only of getting to her father.

Kyle and Hannah sit together until his father comes in with news.