Ashes of Fiery Weather (51 page)

“Do you know any firefighters?” she asked.

“No,” Katie said. “If that's okay, I mean—”

“Oh, sure.” She hefted the guitar case again. “I'd better move it. I'm all the entourage Rose has. Stay. Look around.”

She walked into the hallway and stopped, turning to stare for a moment before continuing on, practically running.

Katie stepped forward and then hesitated.

To the left was the gathering. A man with a pronounced Brooklyn accent was speaking. The rows of white chairs were filled. Most of the men wore blue dress uniforms. More firefighters stood in the back of the room, including a few bagpipers.

“—and as we commemorate the eleventh anniversary of September 11, this museum stands as a testament that the FDNY has a long and storied past. Before the FDNY, we had the BFD. The Brooklyn Fire Department, when we were our own city, before the Great Mistake of '98 . . .”

Katie wasn't about to stand conspicuously in the back of the room. She went instead through the open door across the hall and into an office with a small desk. Immediately, she envied whoever got to use it. There was a fireplace and, on either side of it, built-in bookshelves. She went over to check out the books and saw that they were all about the FDNY, or September 11, or the FDNY
and
September 11.
Report from Engine Company 82. 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. Brooklyn Firefighters: Photographs by Amred Lehane.
Katie ran her finger over the orange letters of the title.

“—now Rose O'Reilly, daughter, sister and niece of New York City firefighters, is going to sing for us.”

Katie crept closer to the doorway, almost tiptoeing.

Rose began to speak. “I'd like to dedicate this song to my father, Sean O'Reilly, and to my aunt and my brother, who hasn't been thrilled by all the love from the press—”

The crowd laughed.

Aidan O'Reilly,
Katie thought.
Eileen O'Reilly.

“—even though I've finally gotten him to admit that without the attention, this place never would have happened. I can't leave out our black sheep, Brendan, who went and became an EMT. I am not going to make the joke about how at least he's not a cop—”

Again the crowd laughed.

“—not today, when we're remembering everybody who lost their lives that morning and those who are now losing their lives to illness. But given where we are, this is especially for all the members of the FDNY who have made the ultimate sacrifice, long before and long after September 11.

“First, I'm going to start with a song that Mary Fahl wrote for the FDNY, about 9/11,” Rose said. “Many of you will probably recognize the tune as ‘On Raglan Road.' It's called “‘The Dawning of the Day.'”

Rose began to sing.

Katie slipped out to the hallway and went into the next room. It was unfurnished. Framed photographs hung on the white walls, hemmed by the molding. More were presented on easels. Through an open pocket door, she could see another room, much the same. She looked up at the two photographs displayed on the mantelpiece and stepped closer to see them better.

The photo on the left was a black-and-white shot of a fireman standing beside the open door of a fire truck, as though he'd just jumped down, his gaze intent, not aware of the camera. Beside it was a photograph of Aidan O'Reilly on September 11, leading a bleeding woman away from the burning towers, which appeared in a corner of the frame. Because this photo was in color, his blue eyes were a focal point.

Rose was singing  “Wild Mountain Thyme.”

Squinting, Katie read the label next to the photo, which told the story of its discovery in 2007, on a roll of film found among the belongings of the photographer's sister after her death. The photographer himself had been killed in the collapses. When the picture was first published, Aidan O'Reilly was misidentified as a firefighter who had been killed, and this was taken as fact for almost a day, before he stepped forward. In the one interview he gave, he said he did so only so the press would stop bothering the family of the other firefighter.

Katie recalled that she'd read the interview quickly and dispassionately, though with some of her old resentment for the way the deaths of the firefighters were made out to be the main event of the attacks.

Rose announced  “The Parting Glass.”

Katie knew that would be the last song. It always was. When the song ended and the applause finished, Rose thanked everybody for coming. The museum was open, she reminded them, as was the garden. Chairs scraped back. A burst of conversation began.

Katie slipped out the front door, not daring to peek in the room. At the bottom of the stairs, she turned right and stepped onto a cobblestone walk that she assumed led to the back of the house and the garden. She was not brave enough to stand and watch the crowd enter the hallway, but she was not such a coward that she would leave altogether.

She rounded the corner of the house and stopped when she saw a side door that was ajar. Distracted by her own curiosity, she opened it wider and looked inside, where she saw a narrow, unlit room. The museum was clearly using the space for storage. Stacks of boxes lined the wall. Shovels, rakes and other gardening supplies hung from hooks.

Katie stepped in. At the far end of the room was a window with a heavy mesh screen, like a confessional in 1950s movies about the Catholic Church. It was blocked by a dark wood panel from the other side. Katie realized what it was. She'd read about the convent on the museum's website. The cloistered nuns inside would open it to speak to visitors. Beneath the screen was the turn. Katie went over and gave the cabinet a spin.

When she heard two voices outside, she glanced around the room for a way out besides the door she'd entered from. A rectangle of sunlight fell across the wooden floor. Rose O'Reilly came in, and behind her the redhead with the braid.

“We saw you duck in here,” Rose said, “and we were wondering if you could settle a bet?”

“A bet?” Katie repeated.

“I believe you saw my tall cousin on the way in?” She nodded at the redhead. “Quinn said you were even smaller than me, and I said that was hard to believe, so we've come to find out who's right.”

“Five-foot-seven is a perfectly average height,” Quinn said. “Anyone over five-five looks like a giant to you, that's all.”

Katie took a step back. “Well . . .”

“I prefer ‘small' to ‘short,' even though one of my best friends says it makes me sound like an elf.”

Quinn laughed. “Justin?”

“Who else?” Rose said. “It's dark in here. Where's the light?”

“Are you blind?” Quinn turned around and flipped a switch that Katie hadn't noticed. A dull yellow light filled the room.

“Not much better,” Rose said. “And no, I'm not blind. I'm not the one mistaking adults for children.” She turned to Katie. “You must be—how old? Twenty?”

“Yes,” Katie said.

Rose's blue eyes did not leave Katie's face. Katie stared back.

Rose sighed. “I'm getting old. Lucky I'm a Sagittarius. We don't dwell on the past. I'm going to guess from your inquisitive nature, poking around in here and all, that you're a Leo?”

“No,” Katie said.

Quinn laughed. “Nice.”

“I'm a Virgo,” Katie said.

Rose frowned. “Ah, but on the cusp?”

“The cusp of what?” Katie asked, confused.

“Of
Leo.
You're on the edge, right after Leo, just into Virgo. Your birthstone is peridot, not sapphire. For which I'm sorry. Sapphires are much prettier.”

Both Rose and Quinn were looking at her expectantly, but Katie could not bring herself to surrender her birth date.

She showed them her bare fingers. “I don't exactly wear a lot of jewelry. My ears aren't even pierced. I can't say I ever minded peridot.”

Rose and Quinn exchanged a look. Rose lowered her chin, but so slightly that Katie could not be sure it was a nod.

“Well,” Rose finally said, “how did you hear about the museum?”

“I saw the event posting on your website,” Katie said. As soon as the words were out, she wished she'd thought of a lie.

“A fan!” Rose said. “Well, I won't make you ask for my autograph, ah—I'm sorry, what's your name?”

You tell me, Katie thought.

Katie knew the story of Kaitlyn. Her father wanted to name her Antonia, in the Italian-American tradition, where the first daughter is named for the paternal grandmother. Her mother, though, didn't think it matched their last name, and she was also sure it would be shortened to Toni. They'd chosen Kaitlyn from a baby-name book, in spite of her mother's worry that it was too popular.

And it was. She'd never been the only Kaitlyn in her class. She wished they'd kept looking.

Katie sometimes Googled her name. “Katie McKenna” brought up her Facebook page. Her profile picture was of herself and her mother standing in front of a pub in Ireland called Rourke's, though she'd cropped out the sign. The picture was Katie's favorite, even if her father had been standing a bit too far away, and even though she clearly recalled the thought she had in the moment before he clicked: Rourke's isn't my pub. Sometimes, like a child playing hide-and-seek, she took that picture down and put up an image of the Book of Kells, or something similar.

If she went more official, up came a
Newsday
article that named Kaitlyn Rourke-McKenna as the daughter of Laurel Rourke-McKenna, who was among the missing in the World Trade Center. She was Kaitlyn McKenna in an article about her father and Emma's upcoming wedding—“9/11 Widow and Widower Find Happiness Again.”

“Katie,” she said.

Quinn looked sideways at Rose, who only smoothed the skirt of her black dress.

“Well, if you haven't seen the garden yet, Katie, you should take a look.”

A low buzz. Katie glanced at her own bag, but Quinn was reaching into her back pocket. She looked at her phone.

“Text from my mom.”

“Your mother can text now?” Rose laughed.

“Yeah, she finally figured it out. But she spells all the words out.
We are heading back to Delia's. Where are you?
” Quinn laughed.

“We did disappear on them,” Rose said. “Bad news, your mom's pissed off. Good news, Quinn, you won the bet. Katie is smaller than me.”

As far as Katie could see, subtracting for shoes, she and Rose were just about the same size.

Reconnaissance.

That was what Katie had told herself when she got on the F train to come here, a street map of Brooklyn tucked in her bag because she'd never ventured this deeply into the borough before. Before she could think of an exit line, Rose said, “Hey, Quinn, maybe you should head over to Gran's.”

“Sure.”

Why? Katie thought with a touch of panic. Why send her away? She felt less conspicuous as one of three, even if it was illusory, since she was the object of their attention.

Rose added, “Can you please do me a big favor and grab my guitars and take them over there?”

“Got it.” Quinn smiled at Katie and ducked out the door.

Rose went outside after her. “Quinnie! Wait a sec!”

Katie glanced around the room again, hoping she would spot another door.

Instead, she saw a display of photographs encased in glass. Many were daguerreotypes of unsmiling men and women, some middle-aged, some young, and there were also black-and-white Kodaks. Nothing in color.

She wheeled around when Rose burst back in.

“I had to beg Quinn not to tell my brothers that I brought the wrong guitar. I'll be twenty-nine in a couple of months,” she said, “but once the youngest, always the youngest, you know?”

“I'm an only child,” Katie said.

Rose didn't seem upset, the way people usually were. What a shame! Why? What happened?

“Oldests and onlies are supposed to be the smart ones,” Rose said. “The youngests are dumb but charming.”

“Well, I'm not an only anymore,” Katie amended. She felt her face heat but Rose didn't laugh. She waited.

“When I was thirteen, my dad and stepmom had a baby, and then a year later, another one.”

“Brothers? Sisters?”

“Boys,” Katie said. “I'm away at school, so I don't get to see them much. I know I just made it sound like I forgot them. I didn't. The kids are . . . Emma's. And my father's, of course. Brown eyes. They both look just like him.”

She told herself to stop babbling. Though she hadn't meant it that way, it sounded like an invitation for Rose to comment on the color of Katie's eyes.

Indeed, Rose started to say something, but Katie, flustered, interrupted.

“What's with these pictures? Do you know?”

“Those, yes,” Rose said. “The nuns were allowed to bring one picture with them when they entered. But in true Catholic Church fashion, there were rules attached that were probably totally the whim of the mother superior. The sisters weren't allowed to keep them in their cells.” Rose stepped up beside her. “Look.”

She pointed to a sepia photo of two little boys. She tapped the glass. “This one the nun kept with her. When she died, they found it, along with instructions that she be buried with it. Obviously, they weren't followed.” Rose tucked her hand in her sleeve and used it to polish the glass where she'd touched it.

Katie studied the photo. The boys were both under six years old and almost certainly brothers.

“My mom wants these photos to be their own exhibit. The history of the convent and all. Some of her fellow board members want to keep it strictly about the fire department. Bit of infighting going on.”

Norah O'Reilly,
Katie thought.

“But I can tell you this,” Rose said, grinning. “Mama Bear will win.”

The silly nickname pierced Katie. “I tried, Kit-Kat,” her own mother said once, about being a stay-at-home mom. “Lasted six whole months. I nearly went nuts. No offense.”