We All Fall Down: The True Story of the 9/11 Surfer (18 page)

When Louise was ten, her parents surprised her with Rusty, a brown poodle. Louise and Rusty were instant pals, and the dog became like the little brother that Louise never had. She and Jill took Rusty everywhere they went. They played fetch with him in the street or took the curly-haired dog along whenever they went to the park. If Louise was out and about, it was a sure thing that Rusty would not be far behind, a hairy shadow that never left her side.

~ ♦ ~

As happy as her childhood was, her early teenage years were packed with even more joy. As Louise grew, so did her talent. Her aptitude for music was apparent to all who knew her. While many parents might have discouraged music or dismissed it as nothing more than a child’s fantasies and a foolish pursuit, Josephine encouraged Louise to pursue her passion. Louise did just that, and with the help of her parents, her dedication paid off. She was accepted at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, the esteemed school of
Fame
reputation. Louise’s instrument of choice was voice, and she excelled throughout high school, in the company of many other talented performing arts students, such as Jenifer Aniston.

The little girl who’d once sang Shirley Temple’s dimple-faced tunes into her mother’s tape recorder for her father to hear made her time at LaGuardia worthwhile and, as a result, was accepted at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Louise was thrilled, and her parents were extremely proud of their daughter for her outstanding achievement. Unfortunately, their unbridled happiness was tempered soon after Louise was accepted at Berklee, and their world began to crumble when Josephine fell ill.

Despite her horrible colon cancer diagnosis, Josephine refused to let her illness slow her down, and she even more adamantly refused to let it jeopardize her daughter’s future. When Louise learned of her mother’s illness, her first instinct was to forego college and instead spend that time with her mother, but Josephine promptly nixed the idea as soon as she heard of it and told Louise that she had to go to school. She would not allow her own illness to stand in her daughter’s way. Despite her ailing health, Josephine still spent as much time as she could with Louise and traveled almost every month to visit Louise in Boston.

In an effort to make sure Louise enjoyed her college days as much as possible, and also because she wanted to get to know the people who were keeping her daughter company in Boston, Josephine even went so far as to plan little get-togethers with her new friends from Berklee. Whenever she had the opportunity to visit Louise in her dorm, she often bought soda, chips, and pizza for Louise and her dorm mates. She did not enable raucous or out-of-control behavior, of course, but Josephine always made sure the kids had fun and that her daughter had plenty to smile about.

Louise’s classmates truly appreciated and admired Josephine, and they often asked, “Hey, when is your mom coming back, Louise?” As such, Josephine became the unofficial mother to the Berklee kids, an honor she wore proudly.

She even encouraged nightly jam sessions with Louise and her friends. They would bring their various instruments and gather in a common area and play the nights away. Louise appreciated her mother for that, but it also left her feeling unbearably homesick every time she had to watch her mother drive away.

~ ♦ ~

After her first year at Berklee, Louise was excelling in the classroom, boasting a near-perfect grade point average and a budding skill at the piano. When she returned home for the summer, her mother had a gift waiting for her.

“Louise! Oh my God, I have missed you so much!” Josephine hugged her. “Your father and I are so happy to have you home. I want you to tell me everything that has happened since we last talked. But first, I have a present for you. Close your eyes!”

“What are you talking about, Mom?” Louise asked.

“You will see soon enough. Now listen to me and just close your eyes!” Josephine told her, trying her best to look stern in spite of the huge, telling smile on her face.

Louise did as she was told, and her mother led her by the hand into their apartment. “Can I open my eyes now?” Louise asked when they stopped.

“Not yet. Give me one second.” Josephine let go of her daughter’s hand and, after a moment, said, “Okay! Open your eyes.”

“Oh my goodness, Ma! What did you do?!” Louise exclaimed when she saw it. There, right in front of her and behind her mother was a breathtakingly beautiful white piano. “Mom, how did you manage…how did you get this? It is so beautiful!”

“Don’t you worry about how I managed to get it. You just worry about playing it for me!” Josephine motioned for Louise to sit at the piano, and she did as she was asked.

Louise spent most of the summer on that bench, playing for her mother on those pristine ivory keys. No matter how much she played, Josephine never grew tired of it. There was no way Josephine could have known at the time, but far more than a gift to brighten her home, her daughter’s eyes, and her own ears, she was providing Louise with a tool that she would later use to cope with the fallout of 9/11—a tool Louise would later rediscover with her own daughter.

That summer was full of wonderful memories, memories of Louise’s mother that she would forever cherish. Unfortunately, as beautiful as the memories and music were while the months waned on, they were not enough to ward off the relentless cancer, and Josephine’s condition only worsened.

~ ♦ ~

Louise pleaded with her mother one night on the phone from Boston “Mom, I have to come home. I can’t be here while you are so sick, and I just—”

“Bullshit, Louise,” her mother interrupted. “I am going to be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Louise’s mother was a true native New Yorker, born and raised on Elizabeth Street in Little Italy. She was a strong minded woman who put all of her strength and diligence into everything she did. She was known for saying, “If you ain’t got heart and balls, what’s the point?” and that was how she lived her life. Her cancer was not something that she was going to let get in her way. She wasn’t going to let it get in the way of her daughter’s life either.

“How can I
not
worry about you, Mom?”

“Just put it out of your mind and concentrate on school. Hey, you know what?” Excitement rose in Josephine’s voice. “You work hard, and I think we all deserve a break. The doctors told me the cancer has spread, but fuck it. How about we take a trip to the Bahamas this winter?”

And, just like that, the trip was planned. Josephine and Louise had a wonderful time in the Bahamas that very winter. They enjoyed every minute they spent together, be it parasailing, talking and laughing near a beach bonfire, or even just lazing around in the sun. Josephine lived by the credo, “Live everyday like you are dying,” and that winter, Louise and Josephine did.

As amazing and refreshing as that trip to tropical paradise was, it would be her last trip, for her condition began to consume her body, even if it could not dampen the woman’s strong and positive spirit. A month or so before passing, when Louise was back at Berklee, Josephine sent her daughter a card. The cover read:
“As I was thinking of you today…a smile tickled my face,”
and on the inside, she scribed a note for her daughter that Louise would forever cherish, one of the last letters ever written by her hand:

Dear Louise,

I just got off the phone with you, so I thought I would drop you a few words…I love you so much, and I feel alive when I am near you. I knew one day you would grow up, but I didn’t think it would be so fast. We used to have so many laughs together (and fights!), especially when we would go downtown and you would push me in the wheelchair, running up and down Madison Avenue, and all the shopping we would do! Your father wanted to kill me! I guess I just melt when I’m around you, baby. I hope you are having a good time at Berklee and learning everything there is to know about life. Life is so short, Louise, that it is over sometimes before you know it. So EVERY DAY, BE HAPPY! Get everything out of that day, and thank Jesus for giving you that day. I know I have a lot of thinking to do to clear my mind, but I just seem to come up blank all the time. But enough of that…

I love you, and I am so proud of you! God Bless you. I’ll be hearing from you soon. Love you with all my heart.

Love and kisses,

Mommy

Louise was terrified of not being there if and when her mother would finally succumb to her battle with cancer. So, in spite of Josephine’s protests, Louise left Berklee before the following Christmas to help take care of her mother and spend as much time with her as possible.

The memories and mementos Josephine gave Louise would comfort her long after her mother’s passing and still live on in her heart forever. Even as her health worsened, her spirit remained strong. She stayed strong for her husband and daughter, knowing they did not have their own strength to face her illness and her loss. But some battles are impossible, regardless of one’s fortitude and determination, and in February of that year, Josephine passed away.

~ ♦ ~

Louise was devastated, but her father was inconsolable. Although his body was still with Louise, he became little more than a shell of the man he once was. He fell into a depression so deep that he could not even manage to plan his beloved wife’s funeral. Louise, a nineteen-year-old girl who had just lost the source of her inspiration, was left with the daunting and heartbreaking task of making arrangements for her deceased mother.

Harry was not well and could not get over the loss of the love of his lifetime. Louise, helpless to take away his pain, was unable to do anything but watch as he spiraled downward. The only relief she found was in knowing that her cousin Marie worked in the same apartment building where Harry lived.

Marie was a great source of comfort to Louise, but she was like an angel for Harry. His niece, daughter of his beloved sister Mary, was a blessing in a time when he desperately needed one. She would visit Harry every day, and they would talk of old times, back when the family was all together. Though there were only one or two siblings left at the time, they would relive memories of all the crazy fun the Mascias had when all twelve aunts and uncles were alive. They spent hours reminiscing and talking, and Marie always made sure she left Harry full of good spirits and good food. She was very close to him, and Louise was extremely grateful to her cousin for so selflessly looking after her father.

Harry never did recover from the loss of his soul mate. He lived on in body, but that was all; his spark of life was just…gone, as if it had been buried with his beloved Josephine. He loved his daughter with all of his heart and soul, but without Josephine, he felt like half of his soul had been ripped away from him, and he could not get it back.

In February of 2000, a fire broke out in Harry’s apartment, and his lungs were damaged severely by the smoke. While he was placed on life support, he couldn’t hold on for long, and on March 10, he took his last breath. Louise held on to him for dear life, but eventually the beeping of the machine—her only signal that Harry was still with her—fell silent. Louise held on to him and wept, whispering in his ear, "Goodnight, my love...Sleep tight, my love...God bless you...Pleasant dreams, sweetheart...” a song she used to sing to him from the Shirley Temple album when she was little. She did take some solace in knowing that he was finally where he wanted to be: back with his darling Josephine.

What Louise didn’t know at the time was that just shortly over a year later, she’d be holding on for dear life once again and hoping beyond hope that her own darling wasn’t going to leave her far too early.

~ ♦ ~

As Louise watched her husband recede farther inside of himself, she could not bear to wonder if maybe the man she loved with every fiber of her being was heading down the same path as the first man she’d loved, her father. Harry had never managed to crawl out from the pits of despair, and now she worried that her husband would also suffer the same fate. She worried that Pasquale would become only a shell.

She had always envisioned a perfect life with him, the fairytale wedding with her Prince Charming leading to the birth of an angelic little baby, but as the birth of their daughter approached, that fairytale seemed to be crumbling around her. She’d thought the time leading up to their daughter’s birth would be as happy as the times before her mother was diagnosed with cancer, rather than the desperate, tainted state things were in after the Towers fell. And, once again, she was helpless to do anything but watch as the love of her life was falling down. She could only pray he would somehow manage to stand back up again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It’s Like Rain on Your Wedding Day

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”

~ Aristotle

He was at the table, then down on one knee.
Impossible
! In this place, above all places in the world, he was going to ask her to marry him.

“I love you very much.” He took her hand in his. His eyes were warm, his face like that of a little boy, expectant and hoping. Maybe he was even a little afraid of what her answer might be. “Will you share with me one love, one lifetime? Will you marry me?” His voice shook just a little.