Chapter 9 Summary
As Lianne leaves the community center after her Alzheimer’s group meeting, she knows their time together is coming to an end; she does not think she can start over with another six or seven people, enjoying the beauty but always grasping after her father. She wants to go home to find a message from Carol Shoup asking her to call as soon as possible; instead, she walks without a plan and finds herself in a place that reminds her of Rosellen. She remembers the woman’s last writing and thinks she understands the repetition, the rephrasing of a single word, as a kind of protection against the final stark condition.
Keith walks back through the park after spending half an hour with Florence. He picks up Justin from school and is relieved to have something to talk about with him: homework, teachers, friends. They plan to intercept Lianne as she returns from her meeting and to try to lift her spirits. They do not know her exact route, whether she is walking fast or slow, but they see it as a challenge. Keith is barely attentive to his son as he reflects on his final conversation with Florence, telling her it was over. The light fell from her face. He knows she counted on him to provide calm in her life, saying little but always attentive. Then she was the one who was still.
Lianne knows there will be no message from Carol when she gets home. There will be no book for her. She walks near the train tracks and passes a school, then she sees him. He seems to come out of nowhere on the other side of the protective fence that borders the tracks. He is a white male in a white shirt and a dark jacket. The children in the schoolyard are watching him, but the rest of the street is silent and disinterested for now. Faces are looking with interest out of the windows of the projects nearby. The man is closer now, wearing a suit and tie and stepping down the short ladder in the fence opening. Now she knows who it is and has the same sense of foreboding that she sees on those faces. The man climbs three stories above her, onto the train platform that resembles a slatted fire escape. She wonders why he is doing this.
Keith is only half listening to Justin as they walk, but now he realizes his son is talking in monosyllables again. He tells him to “cut the crap”—a perfect monosyllabic sentence. Justin complains that his father always wants him to talk, but now that he is, he wants him to be quiet. Justin is quite adept now at speaking in monosyllables, barely pausing between words. Keith tells him he can speak whatever language he wants, but this one is upsetting to his mother and he wants Justin to stop upsetting her, even if he does not understand it. The skies are getting darker and Keith wonders if it was a bad idea to try to meet Lianne. He also wonders if he should tell her about Florence. The more he thinks about it the more convinced he is to tell her. It will be a “perilous truth” that will lead to a clean understanding and reciprocal trust. He is convinced of it. Perhaps, given the nature of the circumstances, it will be a forgivable offense. Perhaps she would be the one to suffer, knowing she can never understand the “intensity of the involvement.” Perhaps she will grab a steak knife and kill him or begin...
(This entire section contains 1191 words.)
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a tortuous withdrawal from him, or perhaps her occasional insomnia will become permanent and she will enter counseling and take medication. Perhaps she will take their son and go to her mother’s for a while, or perhaps she will believe him because it is true, “simply and forever.” Perhaps she will damn him to hell and call a lawyer.
Slowly people begin gathering at the fence, heads up, eyes focused on the figure above them. Lianne moves back, away from the fence. She wishes this were some sort of comedic catharsis, some mockery of the irrational, but it is too deep and too personal. Looking around, she hopes to see someone who is feeling what she is feeling, but there is no one. Lianne does not think of walking away, and a lady in the window above her yells out that she has called nine-one-one. It is clear she does not know who the man is. Falling Man usually goes where there is a crowd or where he can attract one, and Lianne wonders why he is here, with only some students and faces at the window who do not know him.
The man stands poised on the platform, but he does not fall. Lianne finally realizes his audience is not them, those on the ground, but the moving audience on the train. She thinks about the passengers on the train—an audience in motion that cannot know the man is wearing a harness. All they will see is a man in a suit falling from the platform. The train whistle blows and Lianne sees the man’s body tense in preparation and anticipation. His face is blank and then he jumps. He hangs twenty feet above the sidewalk in a grotesque position, his stylized and well practiced pose. She is close enough to speak to him; she is the closest one to him, in fact. He remains motionless and does not see her when she walks by, quickly, with her head down. Now she is running. When she finally stops, she feels drained, doubled over in pain; this never happens when she runs long distances in the mornings.
Keith tells Justin he is trying to read Lianne’s mind. Justin’s hands are nearly hidden by the sleeves of his sweater, which is a recent and rather disturbing habit Keith has noticed. Justin says maybe she took a cab or the subway, and Keith says she does not ride the subway anymore. When his son asks what is wrong with the subway, Keith says maybe he is right; maybe she did take the subway. He has decided to tell his wife about Florence. He will tell her it was an aberration, their times together “easily countable” and generated by the traumatic circumstances. She will be silent as he makes his case, then he will sit and wait. Justin complains that she is probably already home, and then his father taps him on the arm. She is walking uncertainly, even stopping in the middle of an intersection, and he knows something is wrong. By the time she finally crosses the street, they are both running toward her.
Lianne will take the pages the members have written and add them to the others, but first she will check the phone messages. After crossing against the light, she sees them running toward her, “bright with urgent life.” She raises her hand so they will see her in the sea of anonymous faces around her, thirty-six days after the planes.
