We were getting ready to go to our first client’s home for the day. The TV was on and our youngest was playing on the bedroom floor. The older kids were at school.

My husband called out, “Hey, what’s going on? Looks like a plane just hit a building in New York!”

I came out of the bathroom just in time to see the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

We stood there, staring, trying to make sense of it. For almost an hour.

We wondered if we should pick up the kids from school; we wondered if we should go to work.

I called our client and asked if we should come—she said sure, why not? I couldn’t tell her.

We managed to gather our supplies and the three-year-old and left the house. By the time we arrived at the client’s house, she was glued to the TV.

Halfway through the job, we left. We couldn’t stay. She barely noticed.

We spent the next week, probably, watching TV and wondering what to do, if anything. We wondered what it all meant. What would happen next. We called friends who flew, making sure they were safe.

My mother was stuck in France. No flights.

Every year on this date, things are tense. Here, I mean. At home. Not just across the USA. It’s an overall feeling of doom, a sense of waiting and watching. And remembering.

Even fourteen years later.