After what happened almost fifteen weeks ago Laila could not believe she was back on Elbow

Beach. A year ago to the day, she and Tom were married here. They had fallen in love with

Bermuda and had planned to spend their first anniversary here. But now she was here alone. It

was painful to come back. But she felt she must – the visit more a pilgrimage than a vacation. A

promise she had to keep.

She walked slowly up the beach, deep in thought. Her unborn child stirred within her. It had been a sunny day, and still warm despite the rapidly setting sun. It was difficult to believe it was Christmas Eve. It would have been perfect, except for what happened almost fifteen weeks earlier.

Laila loved Christmas. She was not Christian, but she celebrated the universal message of peace, sharing, forgiveness and joy that the festival conveyed to all mankind. It was one reason why she and Tom had decided to marry on Christmas Eve. What better gift to each other than one’s self.

The beach was almost deserted as she walked past the shuttered openings of Mickey’s towards the west end of the beach. She walked barefoot at the water’s edge, watching the random patterns the waves left on the wet sand. Utterly absorbed in her own thoughts she hardly noticed the young man walking towards her, until they passed each other. He touched the peak of his Yankees’ baseball cap to her as he passed. “How you doin’?” he said. She smiled faintly at him, finding the gesture quaintly old-worldly and somewhat incongruous with the greeting. He moved on and Laila kept walking. She had seen him before – a quiet, sombre-looking young man. He had sat across the aisle from her on the flight to Bermuda. They hadn’t spoken, but she sensed a sadness within him that matched her own.

The wet sand under her feet and the cool water lapping at her ankles reminded her of the first night of her short married life. After dinner at the Café Lido she and Tom had come down to the beach and walked barefoot through the moonlight spangled water, holding onto each other. The sound of the water isolated them from the rest of the world. It was then that they had agreed that they would return to Bermuda for their first wedding anniversary. But that was then, and this was now - a very different now.

She remembered the day almost fifteen weeks before when she saw Tom as she was leaving the North Tower where she worked with her co-workers and others. He was on his way in with his colleagues. Men on a mission. He had smiled at her, mouthed “I love you” and blew her a kiss through the visor of his helmet. That was the last time she saw him.

When she reached the west end of the beach, below the Coral Beach Club, she turned and started to walk back slowly, trying to make sense of her emotions – the nagging disbelief, the heart-rending grief and silent anger. She tried to make sense of life itself but found it difficult.

When she reached the rocky outcrop on the Stonington Hotel end of the beach, where she had left her shoes and towel, she stripped to her bathing costume and walked deliberately into the ocean.

As the first wave of cold water hit her she drew her breath in sharply and let herself go. She swam with long, strong strokes into the oncoming waves. A few yards out she stopped and looked back to the shore. The young man she had seen earlier was sitting on the sand, close to where her things were. She did not know why, but she found his presence comforting. She felt a strange sense of empathy with this stranger.

She dove under the surface, submerging herself in the ultramarine, Bermudian waterworld. She stayed down as long as she could, surfaced briefly for air and dove again and again and again. She felt the cool, clear water start to wash away the ashes, smoke, grime and horror that she felt had pervaded her very soul, since that fateful day almost fifteen weeks ago. She swam slowly back to shore.

Nothing had changed but for the first time she believed she was on the long, hard road to healing and recovery.

The man was still sitting there, staring out to sea. Laila wrapped her towel around her and instinctively she moved the few steps towards him. She sat down on the sand next to him. Silently she looked out to sea, as if striving to catch a glimpse of what he was seeing out there on the darkening waters or within his own being on this painful Christmas Eve.

After a few minutes she turned to him – this stranger with the old-worldly manners and a Yankees’ baseball cap. “Where’re you from?” she asked.

He didn’t look at her, but she noticed tears in his eyes. “Queens, New York,” he said softly. She wiped some tears of her own, reached out and took his hand. “I’m from Brooklyn,” she said.

December 2001

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