The Way it Should Be

         Nathaniel and his sisters were getting dressed when the music coming from the radio was interrupted by a News broadcast.

         "Right in the middle of my favorite song!" complained 11-year-old Fallon as she finished brushing her hair.

         "Shhh!" warned 15-year-old Heather, wanting to hear the important news bulletin.

         Nathaniel listened carefully, his eyes growing wider with every new detail. "Mommy!" he shouted frantically, having heard enough. He galloped down the stairs two at a time. "Mommy! Come quick!"

         Mommy was in the kitchen getting breakfast ready. Hearing Nathaniel's shouts, she dropped the toast and hurried toward him. "What is it?" she cried, worried one of the children had been hurt.

         "An accident!" the 8-year-old boy exclaimed breathlessly. "An airplane...hit a building...in New York City!"

         "One of the World Trade Towers!" Heather added as she reached the landing.

         Mommy rushed to the family room and grabbed the remote control. As she turned on the television, a terrible picture filled the screen. Smoke and flames were pouring out of the tall building while news helicopters circled above.

         "Daddy's in New York for a business trip, isn't he?" Heather asked, hoping that she was wrong. Sometimes Daddy went to New York, but other times he went to Boston, Atlanta, or Sacramento.

         "And we know people in New York!" Fallon added before Mommy could respond.

         "I'm sure Daddy is fine," Mommy replied as tears filled her eyes. "And the people we know in New York live on the other side of the river, in Brooklyn, so I'm sure they're fine, too."

         "I hope they're all okay," Nathaniel worried aloud. Heather and Fallon could only nod in agreement as they continued to watch the screen.

         The children sat on the floor and watched the scene in front of them, worried about their father and their friends.

         "I wonder if we will see the brontosaurus fire truck," Nathaniel commented. He had seen the huge truck in a movie about fire trucks and was fascinated by its long ladders and extension bucket used to lift fire fighters high in the air to rescue people from fires in very tall buildings.

         Mommy stood at the doorway, uncertain. As the family watched in horror, a large airplane came into view and disappeared behind the undamaged tower. A huge explosion followed just seconds later! She dropped to the floor and held her children, trying to comfort them. This is no accident she thought.  One plane, maybe, but two is not an accident!

         "How close was Daddy supposed to be to the World Trade Towers for his meeting?" Heather asked.

         Mommy shook her head, not wanting to hear the answer herself. They need to know, but how do I tell them? she asked herself silently. How?

         A moment later Fallon went to the living room and selected a photo of her father from a table of framed photographs. His brave face smiled up at her as her tears fell on the glass. Hugging the photo to her chest, she returned to the family room where her mother, brother, and sister sat huddled on the floor.

         "I want Daddy to be here, too," she said, her voice choked with tears. "That's the way it should be." Fallon handed the picture to Mommy, who wiped the tears from the glass as she traced the outline of the familiar handsome face that looked back. The face blurred from her sight as her own tears fell, splashing on the glass.

         "Daddy will call just as soon as he can," Mommy comforted.

         The sad family continued to watch as, the World Trade Towers, once so tall and straight and proud, crumbled to the ground in a heap of rubble; first one and then the other. 

         "Oh no!" the frightened children exclaimed, horrified by what they'd seen. Mommy placed a quivering hand over her mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks. The children buried their faces in Mommy's arms and wept as she clicked the television off.  As much as she wanted to watch the developing news, she knew her children had seen far more than their minds could understand.

         "I want Daddy!" Fallon sobbed. "I want Daddy!"

         "I know, baby," Mommy soothed, rocking with all three children clinging to her. "Daddy's hotel is near the World Trade Center. I'm sure he's scared, too."

         "Why doesn't he call us?" Nathaniel wailed, brushing away tears with the back of his hand.

         "All the lines must be busy with so many trying to call their families," Mommy reasoned. "I know he's thinking of us and he'll call as soon as he can." She looked down at the blurred photograph in her lap. Please be okay she prayed silently. Please let him be okay.

         The morning hours passed slowly. Schooling and breakfast were both forgotten as the family stuck close together, comforting each other.  Mommy would occasionally turn on the television when the children left the room; the whole world was shocked by the tragedies that occurred that September morning.

         "Why doesn't Daddy call?" Nathaniel asked at lunchtime. "Do you think he's really okay?"

         "I know he'll call," Mommy said as she fixed a light lunch.

         No one felt like eating, but the breakfast toast still lay on the countertop where it had been dropped. "Please, eat something," Mommy urged as the children silently moved food around on their plates.

         "I'm worried about Daddy, and about our friends," Fallon began with fresh tears springing to her eyes.

         "I'm worried too," Mommy admitted. "Let's get done with lunch and then we'll do something to take our minds off our worries." The children nodded, but they still didn't feel like eating.

         After the dishes were cleared, Mommy tried to think of something to do. "Would you like to paint pictures?" she asked.

         "OK," the children agreed sadly. Each child took a piece of paper and a paintbrush. Soon, all three were hard at work.

         "I'm finished," Fallon finally said.

         "Bring it here and tell me about it," Mommy suggested, even though it was easy to tell what Fallon's picture was about.

         "This is the twin towers," Fallon began, pointing to two tall gray buildings. "And this is the second plane that hit while we were watching on the news." The rest of the little girl's picture was filled with smoke and flames.

         Sad tears filled Mommy's eyes as she hugged Fallon close. "We will be okay," she soothed, as much for her own comfort as for her child's.

         Heather and Nathaniel soon finished their pictures, which were very similar to Fallon's. Heather's painting showed the Statue of Liberty in the background, and Nathaniel had surrounded the towers with fire engines and other emergency vehicles. Mommy hugged each child as she looked at their picture.

         "Let's try to think of happy things now," Mommy encouraged, handing out fresh paper.

         Heather painted a picture of the family having a picnic at the park. "This is the way it should be," she explained when she showed the picture to Mommy.

         Fallon's picture showed the family at the zoo. She was sure to include all of her favorite animals: elephants, frogs, and guinea pigs. "This is the way it should be," she explained. "Daddy should be here and we should be doing something fun together."

         Nathaniel, however, didn't know what to paint. He sat for a long time staring at the empty page. "Do you really think Daddy and our friends are okay?" he worried aloud.

         Mommy got out a map of New York City and pointed to Manhattan. "This is where the World Trade Center is," she explained. Pointing to a location across the river on the map, she said, "This is Brooklyn. Brooklyn is where our friends live and work. I am sure they were not hurt."

         "But what about Daddy?" Fallon asked.

         "Daddy was staying at a hotel right by the World Trade Towers," Mommy began. "On the news they said that hotel was evacuated."

         "What is evac...evacutatate?" Nathaniel questioned.

         "Evacuated," Heather corrected. "That means everyone was told that they had to get out of the building."

         "Was Daddy evacutated?" he asked.

         "Yes. If Daddy was in the hotel when the planes hit the towers, he would have been evacuated," Mommy said reassuringly.

         Nathaniel still didn't know what to paint. Fallon picked up her picture and showed it to him. "If Daddy was here we could go to the zoo and see all of the animals," she said, trying to sound happy. "This is the way it should be."

         Nathaniel nodded and smiled at her picture, but he still didn't know what to paint.

         "My picture shows our family having a picnic," Heather began as she brought her picture to Nathaniel. "See, here you are playing ball with Daddy and Fallon while Mommy and I get lunch ready. This is how it should be."

         Nathaniel nodded and smiled again. "I know what to paint now."

         The girls continued painting as Nathaniel finally dipped his paintbrush into the gray paint. The outlines of two tall buildings soon filled his page. Fallon glanced over and reminded, "Mommy said to draw a happy picture."

"I am," he insisted as he continued to paint. Dipping his brush into the light blue paint, he added windows to the buildings. When he had completed his picture he took it to his mother.

         "What is this?" Mommy asked, looking at the new picture.

         "It's the twin towers," he explained.

         "What's all this down here at the bottom?" she asked, pointing to the people, trees, flowers, and cars that surrounded the bottoms of the buildings.

         "That's the way it should be," he said. "That's what it was like before all the terrible things happened today. They never should have happened, so this is the way it should still be."

         Fallon and Heather looked at their brother's picture and smiled. "You did paint a happy picture after all!" Heather commended.

         "The way it should be," Fallon echoed her brother's words and ruffled his hair. "We all painted pictures of how it should be!"

         "I like that," Mommy commented, choosing a pen from the desk. She turned over each happy picture and wrote: The Way it Should Be.  "That's so we never forget what these pictures are about," she explained as she finished writing.

         The children painted happy pictures all afternoon. Their Father's picture stood in the center of the table, watching them. Mommy went out to the garden and cut some of her last flowers and filled a vase to set beside the picture.

         Even though no one was hungry, Mommy made dinner. "We have to eat something," she reminded the children. No one could think about anything except what had happened that day. The children's happy pictures of the way things should be decorated the refrigerator, but their faces were not happy around the table.

         The phone had not rung all day. The children stayed up later than usual in case their father called, hoping some of their favorite movies would help clear their minds before bed.  Finally, though, they drifted off. Nathaniel was already asleep, curled up in a ball at the end of the sofa. Fallon, too, was dozing off.

         "Can we sleep in your room?" Fallon asked with a yawn.

         "That would be good," Mommy answered, planting a goodnight kiss on the smooth freckled cheek.

         The clock in the family room was chiming eleven times as the children headed up the steps. Mommy straightened the sofa cushions and turned off the lights. As her foot touched the third step the loud ring of the kitchen telephone startled her. Who would be calling at this hour, unless.... she wondered, but did not dare to finish the thought in case she was wrong. The caller ID read: Unknown Name, Unknown Number." The phone rang a second time before she could pick it up.

         "Hello?" she said quickly, pressing the cold receiver to her ear.

         "It's me," said a shaken but familiar voice on the line.

         Mommy felt her knees grow weak and she sunk into the chair by the desk. She tried to speak but the only sound that escaped her lips was a muffled sob of relief.

         "I love you," the voice said, with a sob of its own.

         For a moment she sat at the desk, absorbing every word that the voice from the phone was saying. When she was finally able to speak she said, "I love you too." Moving the phone from her ear and covering the mouthpiece she ran to the steps and cried, "It's Daddy! It's Daddy on the phone!"

         No longer sleepy, all three children raced down the steps as quickly as they could. Mommy pushed the button marked "Speaker" and Daddy's voice filled the room as if he was standing right there with them.

         "I love you all," he said. "I was so worried I'd never see you again."

         "We love you, too, Daddy," all three children answered.

         "Are you okay, Daddy?" Nathaniel asked.

         "Yes, I'm okay now that I've talked to all of you," Daddy replied. "I'll tell you all about it when I get home. As you know, there are no airplanes flying, and rental cars are hard, if not impossible to find."

         "We heard all about it on the news," Mommy said.

         "Don't worry, though. I am just fine...a bit dirty and shaken up, but fine," Daddy reassured them. "I'll be coming home as soon as I can and everything will be the way it should be."

         As Daddy finished speaking, the air vent began to blow and one of the paintings blew off the refrigerator and sailed across the floor. "The way it should be," Mommy repeated. "We've been thinking a lot about that today!"


         Please also read:

ID: 1471592   (Rated: E) First Plane Over St. Louis  A post 9-11 story; follow up story to accompany "The Way It Should Be" by justme