The Resolution

It was September, and the young woman reflected that yet again she had failed in her resolution. Each year it was the same. Each year she failed. It was not that she hadn’t tried, she had, but success was beyond her, and she knew if she tried again, she would fail again.

Her name was Casey. She clutched her bag to her in the early morning sunshine. On autopilot, she was already late as she hurried towards her destination, her job.

An anonymous man bumped into her in the throng, no malice intended, yet no care taken. She winced as the waiting pain shot through her arm. It was not caused by the man, but by Tom the night before. Yet another beating. There was a time when he’d begin the day with an apology, but they dried up a long time ago. All he said this morning was “Make sure you call me when you get to work”, as if she was going to go anywhere else. She knew that he’d probably ring her before then anyway – he always did. He couldn’t or wouldn’t understand a 45-minute journey sometimes took as long as an hour if there were delays on the subway, or if a connection was missed. 

Each year she resolved to get away. Each year she’d tell herself, “This year.” The first time she’d tried, she just told him it was over, but somehow he just used that as an excuse for another beating, of saying she was staying. The second time, she left, moved out, took all her stuff with her.  She refused to answer his calls, eventually getting a new number, but he had ways of finding these things out. Well he would, in his line of work. He turned up on her doorstep, pushed his way inside and dragged her back. Said there’d be trouble for her mom and sister if she tried anything like that again. Said he knew people. And she knew he did. Her mom was a widow, her sister had Down’s, so it was a no brainer. If she left, they’d have to leave too, and that would take some organisation, while at the moment, it was all she could do to stay alive. And she knew he’d find her, wherever she ran to. He could do that.

Zoe used to say tell the police. But he was the police. NYPD. His friends, his colleagues, they didn’t know what he was like. To them, he was just Tom, open, friendly, lovable, loud, in your face. Good at his job. But they didn’t know the other Tom, the Tom who took his work home with him, the Tom who had to have some release for his frustrations when someone had upset him. And as a cop, there’s always someone to upset him, some criminal some person in authority. A cop who knew many on the meaner side if he should decide to use them.

As expected, she was half a block away from her destination when her phone trilled its pathetically cheerful tune. She took out the phone and checked the display. Tom. She looked at the screen, bracing herself to answer, when the crash happened. The noise was so large, so sudden, so unexpected, that she dropped her phone. She looked round for it. She must answer, or else there would be more trouble tonight. She was deaf to the screams as she searched for her phone. There it was in the gutter, but as she tried to push her way between people to get it, ignoring the pain in her arm, another huge crash caused everyone to jump again, and she saw her phone kicked down a drain.

As she stood there horrified at the loss of the phone, she eventually recognised that the screams were coming not only from within her, but from all around. She looked up to see what the others had already seen. It didn’t make sense. The towers, both towers, the towers towards which she was heading, were on fire; flames, smoke, horror, escaping in equal measure. Some of those around her ran, others, herself included, remained rooted to the spot, unable to believe what they were seeing.

She wasn’t sure how long she had stood there when someone pushed against her, the pain in her arm bringing her back to the present. She began to panic. She hadn’t answered her phone, and that would make him angry again, unless…

She looked around her. Her fellow humans, like herself, were being covered in the grey ash that fell like snow on this September morning. Her thoughts went back to her friend, Zoe. Zoe had died three months ago of cancer. Tom wouldn’t let Casey visit her old friend in those last months, but she’d managed to get to see her in her lunch break all the same. Before she had died, Zoe had given an envelope to Casey, “In case you get a chance to escape”, she’d said. “Keep it safe. My cousin will help you.” In the envelope, there was $264, plus Zoe’s birth certificate and other documents, and there was an address for Zoe’s cousin. These Casey had put in her desk at work, and later transferred them to a locker at the bus station. It wasn’t until a month after Zoe died that Casey had dared put the key to the locker on her own keyring. When Tom had asked, she had said the extra key was for a new filing cabinet at work where access was restricted. For some reason Tom had believed her. But then it was only a locker key, it looked like it could be a key to a filing cabinet, but not an apartment key.

Such a decision as she was thinking of now would mean leaving the rest of her family, her mom, her sister. It would mean leaving without saying goodbye. At least for now. Could she do that? She looked round quickly. There were lots of cops, but none that was close enough for her to recognise. She stepped back and took in more of the scene, looking at some of the people round her. With the debris that was falling on everyone, she realised that she was probably unrecognisable as Casey at that moment.

She put her hand on her stomach. There wasn’t just her to think about now. This little life was something that she hadn’t dared tell him about yet, and it deserved a chance. Decision made, Casey became Zoe, turned, and with her head bent, made her way to the bus station and out of New York.