“It was a long time ago—”

“But I don’t mean to be so gloomy! This is such a difficult time for all of us, isn’t it? Fortunately for me, I am sufficiently north of the World Trade Center, though the smell in the air has been very strong, which I am acutely aware of. With my asthma, it makes me very sensitive, and the traffic is quite terrible, and it’s all so tragic. The handmade signs all over the city are very moving, I find. Very moving. Tragic. I just don’t look at them. We are all in shock, I suppose. The city needs to heal, that’s what they say. You aren’t mourning anyone, are you?”

“My grandmother died a few days before.”

“Oh, of course, yes, I know. I meant to ask if you sustained any personal losses, but of course, what was I thinking, you were in mourning already, before September eleventh. What a funny little coincidence, that your grandmother should die just before the tragedy that could have triggered some valuable memories of her own tragic experience. How unfortunate. But ironic. Very ironic. I should add a footnote about that. Wait, let me just make a note. Why is it that you can’t find a good pen when you’re on the telephone? I myself have had no direct personal loss, though my doorman had a cousin who worked in that restaurant on the top floor, Windows on the World, and they’re still searching for him, a busboy who was apparently not a legal resident, so there is no paperwork for him, which makes it very difficult for his family, and they cannot collect any benefits.”

“There are probably more of those cases than we’ll ever know about.”

“True, true, life in the Big Apple. And it was ever thus. But you are safely in New Haven, of course. Anyway, who among us hasn’t been affected in some way? We live in a difficult time. What were we discussing? Oh, yes. I usually walked downtown to see Esther, unless it was raining, and then I took the bus. The tape recorder I used wasn’t very heavy—”

“You recorded my grandmother?”

“I recorded her on three occasions, and we conversed at length on two other occasions, telephonically. When I conducted my interviews with your late grandmother at the home—”

“Interviews about the Triangle fire.”

“Yes, of course, what else? Her recollections, faulty as they were, and highly problematic, too, are a valuable primary source for scholarship among individuals such as myself, working in the field.”

“The field? A whole field about the Triangle factory fire?”

“Oh, of course. I appear to be making erroneous assumptions that you have familiarity with my work when you apparently do not. Forgive me. I assumed that you would have familiarity with my work and my inquiries about your grandmother’s experience, which was so very unique. But I wonder, perhaps you might know my book anyway, although I believe your own profession is a very different one, which involves genetic counseling and research at Yale University, does it not? So prestigious. I am sure, in its own way, it is equally important work. Your grandmother told me all about you, of course, so I feel as though we have almost met—”