All We Have Left

“This is about me, my father, 9/11, my dead brother, all that hurt and anger spilling out of me onto the wall.” 

Jesse and her romantic interest at the time, Nick, have been spray-painting graffiti over walls and buildings in their small town for weeks. Discouraged by the lack of reaction to his messages, Nick proposes a grander target: the Islamic Peace Center. Jesse climbs a rope up the outside wall and spray-paints the message “Terrorists go home” immediately prior to her apprehension by local police. 

“Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn,

From the evil of what He has created,

And from the evil of the utterly dark night when it comes,

And from the evil of those who cast (evil suggestions) in firm resolutions,

And from the evil of the envious when he envies.” 

In an effort to calm herself from the effects of the conflict with her parents, Alia climbs the stairs to the roof of her apartment building before dawn and says a traditional Islamic prayer. She chooses this “surah” in order to attain a sense of serenity and peace, and kneels on a prayer rug stored on the roof for this purpose.

“But now everything is messed up, and I don’t know how to make it right.” 

Alia leaves the Brooklyn apartment that she shares with her parents and brother in order to go for an early morning jog. She reviews the events of the day before, when a school administrator had entered the ladies room while Alia had happened upon her former friend, Carla Sanchez, who was in possession of a marijuana joint. The school officials, and Alia’s parents, believe that Alia was the perpetrator of this event, and she is punished as a result.

“It’s as if every nerve in my body is shrieking and no one hears it but me.” 

Jesse is developing an attraction to Nick, a boy in her Entrepreneurship class who evolves into a significantly undesirable influence upon her. She feels alienated from her emotionally-absent parents; angry about their failure to ever acknowledge the absence of Travis, the brother she lost on 9/11; and generally tired of functioning admirably while being met with a parental reaction of neutrality and oblivion. She responds to Nick’s admiration of her good looks and is intrigued by his radical approach to school. 

“‘He should have been here,’ she said. ‘He should have been here to blow them out.’” 

Jesse’s father prevents any discussion of the late Travis in the family home. On the evening of what would have been Travis’s thirty-third birthday, Jesse finds her mother asleep with her head on the kitchen counter, next to an empty bottle of wine. This early scene shows how long-lasting the trauma of losing a loved one can be. 

“Blow up the box.” 

Nick, aware of Jesse’s mounting interest in him, watches her in the hallway while she is surrounded by student mimes, who encase her in an imaginary box. He mouths the words “Blow up the box” to her by way of advice; this potentially violent idea comes to characterize their relationship. Ironically, the concept of explosion is sadly evocative of the 9/11 tragedy, and shows how a violent event can breed more violence: 9/11 induces an American military response; Nick’s brother loses a leg while fighting in Afghanistan. Nick’s dad is abusive to him, and Nick is abusive to others. 

“Lia would not be standing here dumbly as her mother ignores her.” 

Lia is a superhero invented by the artistic Alia, who aspires to create comic books despite her parents’ hopes for her to pursue a more traditional profession. Denied the opportunity to attend a highly-regarded after-school program as punishment for being caught in possession of marijuana at school, she makes an attempt to argue logically with her mother, who disdains further conversation with her.

“I’m tired of safe.” 

Jesse meets with her girlfriends, Teeny, Myra, and Emi, in order to study Statistics. The other girls use this opportunity to express disapproval of Jesse’s relationship with Nick, cautioning her against his influence. Jesse chooses to ignore their advice, as well as the voice in her mind advising that Nick isn’t safe. 

“As far as I know, no one knows what Travis was doing in the towers that day.” 

Jesse comes across a photo album filled with local press clippings concerning the death of Travis in the World Trade Center. Oddly enough, it has been hidden in a storage shed; subsequently, she will learn that the album is kept by her father. She reflects upon the silence regarding her brother’s death, and that fact that no one in the family ever knew how he came to be in the Towers on 9/11.

“‘You done this before?’ I ask abruptly.” 

Jesse first meets Adam when he is assigned to her as a partner in the course of a group mountain-climbing expedition. They plan to traverse a frozen waterfall, and she wants to assess his climbing skills. When he agrees to allow her to lead the climb, she reflects that Nick would never agree to such an arrangement. 

“Nothing.” 

This word is the tag that Nick has tattooed on his arm and spray paints on highly visible storefronts in town. Annoyed at not evoking more of a reaction, he aims for more prominent sites, which in turn leads to Jesse being injured while accompanying him on a tagging mission. 

“The only time I remember him saying anything about Travis was Hank’s last Christmas when my brother yelled, ‘Why won’t you let us talk about him? For all you know he could have been a hero!’” 

Jesse has no recollection of Travis, who died when she was a baby, but she finds childhood photos of him in her father’s hidden album. She recalls that Hank objected to the moratorium on the mention of Travis’s name in the home, noting that perhaps he had behaved heroically during 9/11. Her father had responded, bitterly, that his son was no hero.

“He opens his mouth to say something else, but we hear a clicking sound, and then static, before a real, live human voice says over the intercom, ‘There’s been an explosion.’” 

Alia is stranded alone in the elevator at the World Trade Center with Travis when the first explosion occurs. He realizes that she had seen him crying over his inability to scatter Gramps’s ashes from the rooftop of the building, and explains that he was afraid that she was going to tease him. As she explains that this was not the case, their conversation is interrupted by a voice announcing that there has been an explosion. 

“Climbing isn’t about strength, it’s about balance and creativity; knowing what your body can do, and understanding what the rock is able to give.” 

Jesse’s mother leaves her husband after realizing the impact of his rage upon her daughter; paradoxically, Jesse elects to stay at home with her father in order to avoid any further change in her life. Desperate for more information about the death of Travis, Jesse realizes that he died only five days after Gramps, who helped build The Twin Towers. She feels that her father may be the source of some answers, and remembers happier times, such as when he taught her mountain climbing techniques. 

“Hello? Is there anybody there? We’re stuck in the elevator! Do you hear me? We’re stuck in the elevator!” 

In flashback format, the reader becomes privy to the interaction between Travis and Alia when they are stranded in a Twin Tower elevator during the attacks. Travis tries to free them by prying the doors open with his grandfather’s penknife and then wedging the door open with Alia’s History textbook. Alia still believes that someone may be monitoring emergency calls and persists in trying to access help through the elevator’s intercom. 

“But Ms. Jonna listens patiently, and I realize that maybe everybody’s story is important, because 9/11 didn’t just happen to the people who died, it happened to the entire country.” 

As part of her community-service sentence due to having spray-painted hate messages on the Islamic Peace Center, Jesse is required to attend sessions at the center twice per week. She helps with charitable works, such as stuffing backpacks with food for disadvantaged children. On one occasion, a 9/11 survivor named Anne Jonna addresses the group regarding the heroism exhibited by New Yorkers in the aftermath of the attacks. Jesse is initially angered when people talk to Ms. Jonna about their whereabouts at the time of the attack, but she comes to realize that 9/11 impacted everyone at the time, regardless of their location.

“Inside is an answering machine.” 

Hank advises Jesse that she can find more information about Travis by looking for a plastic container in the back of Hank’s bedroom closet in the family apartment. Jesse investigates, and locates an answering machine that contains a tape with Travis’s farewell message to his family as he flees the burning Towers. 

“They put my great-grandparents in a camp.” 

Jesse approaches her estranged friend, Emi, for technological help in clarifying the message left by Travis on the old answering machine she has located. Initially reluctant to re-establish their friendship, Emi explains that she is concerned about potential ethnic bias on Jesse’s behalf due to the anti-Islamic graffiti Jesse scrawled on the Peace Center. Emi explains that her Japanese great-grandparents had been interred in a camp as potential enemies of the U.S. during World War II.

“Nobody cares about you; you’re nothing just like us.” 

After reuniting with her girlfriends, Jesse runs into Nick, Dave and Hailey, her former spray-painting companions. They are angry about the fact that she named them in a statement to police and seek retaliation. Nick tells her that she is unloved and should demand attention by engaging in hurtful activities. He shakes her violently; she is saved by the arrival of Adam, who protects her from the angry trio. 

“One older firefighter has a hand clasped to his chest and he’s gasping raggedly for air, leaning heavily on the rail.” 

While many First Responders arrive soon after the initial blast, some succumb to exertion-related causes due to the intensity of the effort of climbing the stairs while laden with heavy equipment. Others died over the ensuing years from cancers and pulmonary disorders caused by exposures to toxins and carcinogens released into the air by various components in the buildings that burned during the attack. 

“‘Our radio signals aren’t getting through,’ the younger man says.” 

Cell phone towers were destroyed and emergency responder’s radio frequencies were jammed as a result of the attacks. When Alia implores two firefighters in the stairwell to request that the upper floors be searched for her father, who may be injured, one of them explains that their communication capacity via radio has been eliminated by the attack. This same cause made it impossible for survivors to contact their families and hindered communication among First Responders attempting to coordinate rescue services.

“‘You’re not my daughter anymore,’ he says, and his words echo in the cool stillness of the shop.” 

Jesse’s father observes her talking to Adam and realizes that the young man is Muslim. Enraged, he reminds her that Muslims were responsible for the 9/11 attack that killed Travis. When she defends Adam, her father essentially indicates that he is disowning her. 

“The other tower, the south one, is burning, and orange molten metal is pouring out of one side like a waterfall of lava.” 

While it was originally thought that perhaps the destruction of the first tower had been the result of a non-terrorism event, the explosion of the second tower appeared to confirm that a terrorist attack had occurred. Alia and Travis can see the other building burning through the windows of the tower that they are trying to escape.