"Twin Towers" drabbles by Neville Hunt

Coincidence

Twin Towers #3

We were deeply saddened to hear of the death of Dinah and her partner in the horror of 9/11. It seemed so unlikely that here in England we might know someone who perished in the Twin Towers attack. But we did.

Weeks later, Victor emailed me. Victor is a young man from St Albans, Vermont, who’d exchanged with my elder son some years before. Quite coincidentally, Victor worked for the same magazine, Risk, as Dinah, but was luckier. He’d been at the Twin Towers that day, but at street level. He just ran for his life, which thankfully he saved.

Reassurance

Twin Towers #2

I was riding shotgun in a hired van with my elder son. We’d just dropped off the contents of his London flat at his uncle’s house in Suffolk. It was the Saturday after 9/11.

My phone rang; it was Vivienne, my best friend’s wife, sounding very bothered. “I’m worried about Dinah. Nobody’s been able to contact her since last Monday. She’s working in New York now. Do you think she could have been caught up in the Twin Towers?”

Vivienne clearly wanted some reassurance, which I promptly gave her... but I feared the worst. But what should I have said?

A life in a very minor key

Twin Towers #1

Dinah gave me her piano. A generous gesture from a generous person. She had no further need for it. I played it a little, but not a lot. Thinking back, I wish I’d played more.

Dinah, my best friend’s wife’s best friend, was always full of life and enthusiasm. Always that is until her 9am presentation at the top of one of the Twin Towers was abruptly halted.

The only thing found was her credit card. When her name appeared on TV in the list of victims, I wept.

I never played that piano again. The notes somehow seemed discordant.