Karen hurried through the glass door and squeezed in front of the screen to watch.

They all did.

There was a reporter broadcasting from the street in Manhattan across from the train station, confirming in a halting tone that some sort of explosion had gone off inside. “Possibly multiple explosions…”

The screen then cut to an aerial view from a helicopter. A billowing plume of black smoke rose into the sky from inside.

“Oh, Jesus, God,” Karen muttered, staring at the scene in horror. “What’s happened…?”

“It’s down on the tracks,” a woman in a leotard standing next to her said. “They think some kind of bomb went off, maybe on one of the trains.”

“My son went in by train this morning,” a woman gasped, pressing a hand to her lips.

Another, a towel draped around her neck, holding back tears: “My husband, too.”

Before Karen could even think, fresh reports came in. An explosion, several explosions, on the tracks, just as a Metro-North train was pulling into the station. There was a fire raging down there, the news reporter said. Smoke coming up on the street. Dozens of people still trapped. Maybe hundreds. This was bad!

“Who?” people were murmuring all around.

“Terrorists, they’re saying.” One of the trainers shook his head. “They don’t know….”

They’d all been part of this kind of terrible moment before. Karen and Charlie had both known people who’d never made it out on 9/11. At first Karen watched with the empathetic worry of someone whose life was outside the tragedy that was taking place. Nameless, faceless people she might have seen a hundred times—across from her on the train, reading the sports page, hurrying on the street for a cab. Eyes fixed to the screen, now many of them locked fingers with one another’s hands.

Then, all of a sudden, it hit Karen.

Not with a flash—a numbing sensation at first, in her chest. Then intensifying, accompanied by a feeling of impending dread.

Charlie had yelled something up to her—about going in by train this morning. Above the drone of the hair dryer.

About having to take in the car and needing her to pick him up later on that afternoon.

Oh, my God…

She felt a constriction in her chest. Her eyes darted toward the clock. Frantically, she tried to reconstruct some sort of timeline. Charlie, what time he left, what time it was now…It started to scare her. Her heart began to speed up like a metronome set on high.

An updated report came in. Karen tensed. “It appears we are talking about a bomb,” the reporter announced. “Aboard a Metro-North train just as it pulled into Grand Central. This has just been confirmed,” he said. “It was on the Stamford branch.”

A collective gasp rose up from the studio.

Most of them were from around there. Everyone knew people—relatives, friends—who regularly took the train. Faces drained of blood—in shock. People turning to each other without even knowing whom they were next to, seeking the comfort of each other’s eyes.

“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” A woman next to Karen shook her head.

Karen could barely answer. A chill had suddenly taken control of her, knifing through her bones.

The Stamford train went through Greenwich.

All she could do was look up at the clock in terror—8:54. Her chest was coiled so tightly she could barely breathe.

The woman stared at her. “Honey, are you okay?”

“I don’t know….” Karen’s eyes had filled with terror. “I think my husband might be on that train.”