text: "Never forget,” is the mantra of that day. These 33 eighth graders from Duke Ellington Middle School, wandering through the newly opened museum dedicated to that day, will never forget- because they never remembered in the first place. They were only one. The youngest were still crawling, unable to communicate in anything but babble. The oldest were running, jumping, talking, even beginning to count. But they were all one-year-olds on that infamous day twelve and a half years earlier, and as such, have never known the world to be any different than it is now. Airport security has always been a hassle, terrorism has always been an omnipresent threat, and there has always been an eerie solemness over the first few days of the school year. Zara is one of the oldest, nearly two then and already fourteen now, but she has no better memory of that day than any of her classmates do. According to her parents, she'd had her own commentary on the events of that day as they unfolded: "What happen?", “I scared", and "no go, Daddy". She had started talking quite early, though, and ever since she has always been either the loudest person in the room or the quietest- no in between. Today she is the quietest; she lags at the back of the small group she has been assigned to, following her classmates as though not quite certain of where she is or what she is doing. She flinches slightly whenever a particularly distressing image comes up, but although her teacher has asked twice if she is okay, all she says is, "I'm fine"- an utterance so simple that she could have formed it on that day. The other students share generic answers to the generic worksheet that they were given, but there is no joking or teasing like there usually is. Even though they were only one, they know how serious this event was, and they know that any idiot who decides to joke about it will be reprimanded and shunned. They will all be obnoxious kids again the second they leave, but they are all able to feel faint stirrings of sadness about this event, although they were only one. Zara feels everything more intensely than average- another eight years will go by before she has a diagnosis for this- but even knowing how she is, her near complete silence today has baffled her teachers and peers. She has a piece of paper folded up in her coat pocket, which she occasionally takes out and examines for a few seconds. Her friend Jessica glances over and is able to catch a glimpse of it- a photograph, an old one but not black-and-white old, of three young men and two young women standing on a pier with the then-standing towers in the background. One of the women looked quite a bit like a grown-up version of Zara, about ten years older or so. “Who's that?” Jessica asks, but Zara immediately folds the photo back up and puts it away, so she decides not to ask again. The group comes upon two recording booths, where people can record their own memories of that day and have their stories become part of the museum. The students pay no attention to it- it’s not on their worksheet, and there are no memories that they can share because they were all only one. Jessica feels a tap on her shoulder. “I’m going to stay here for a bit,” Zara says. The rest of their group has gone on to the next exhibit, but Jessica can copy their answers later anyway. “Okay,” she says. Zara waits in line, and Jessica awkwardly lags behind, wondering what someone who was only one could possibly have to say about that day. She hopes the crueler boys in their class don’t see this; they bully Zara because her sensitivity makes her an easy target, and she doesn’t want to have to go to the guidance counselor's office to support her when they return to school- it seems that Zara ends up in the guidance counselor's office quite often these days. There is a vacancy in one of the booths, and Zara quickly fills it. She hesitates for a moment, taking the picture from her pocket. She places her finger over the image of one of the men, the one standing next to the woman who resembles her. With her unsteady hand, she presses the record button. “Hi, Mr. Goldstein,” she says. “It’s Zara. Robyn’s baby. Well... Robyn's *daughter*. I'm obviously not a baby anymore.” Jessica remembers that when the class was walking around the memorial pools outside, Zara stayed in one place for some time, her finger on one of the names engraved in the marble. The name was Mark Goldstein. On the permission slip each student had been given for this trip, it asked whether their family had been personally affected by the tragedy- if they had been, they could choose to stay home, or they could choose to show up and be treated with kid gloves the entire day as though it would make the slightest bit of difference. Everyone had shown up, and no one had been treated with kid gloves, so the assumption had been that this trip would be a more contemporary version of a trip to the Holocaust Museum or Arlington National Cemetery- a place of education and solemn respect, but not of personal pain. "I'm sorry that I don't remember you," Zara says. "I wish I could. Mommy says my personality reminds her of you- maybe that's because you were a preemie, like me. She says that, when I was a baby, I was afraid of most people that weren't her and Daddy, but I liked you. Maybe I knew somehow that the both of us were miracles." Zara takes a shaky breath that sounds more like a sob. "She says that, when I was little, I used to tell her stories about a man that comforted me at night when I was scared. I told her that he said he and I were special so he had to protect me. The older I get, the harder it is to believe in stuff like that, but... maybe that really was you. I always felt so affected by what happened here- not just to you, but to everyone- even though I was only one when it happened. After all, the youngest person who lost their life here was just a few months older than I was. Her name was Christina, I think- the same name as my best friend from elementary school. She... she was on the plane that... that killed you." The rest of the group have come back to see where Zara and Jessica have gone, and now, unbeknownst to Zara, are listening as she talks to the first of many missing people in her young life. "Uh... I'm starting high school this year," Zara says. "Lilac is starting college. She's going to Columbia- she wants to be a lawyer. She said that she promised you when she was little that she was going to go there one day. She's so happy, but... it still hurts her that you're not around to see it." There are a few older teenagers, alumni of Duke Ellington Middle School, who sometimes meet Zara after school, and Lilac is one of them- a highly animated redhead who always wears an American flag-shaped locket around her neck. Now it is apparent why. “Mommy told me about the bombing... the first bombing,” Zara goes on, “how The Five were all trapped in an elevator when it went off, and you all pried the elevator door open to get out. Mr. Smith and Mr. Bates said that, because you all found a way out once, when the towers fell, they told themselves that you must have found a way out again. But there was no time- the plane crashed right into ParkShed's offices. Eleven employees inside at that moment, and eleven names on this memorial. If they hadn't both been running late to work that day... it would be thirteen, and I wouldn't have any memory of them either." She is starting to cry. “I didn't see much of them or Ms. Baxter when I was little. The ParkShed Five couldn’t bear to face the fact that they were The ParkShed Four now. But when Mommy got sick, they started coming by again, because they didn't want to meet for the next time as the ParkShed Three..." A third of Zara’s class is now watching from a tentative distance, and other museum-goers are beginning to notice as well. It is far from the first tragic spectacle that has happened in this museum, and it will be far from the last, but moments like these are always far more impactful than any artifact pulled from the rubble. “A few months ago, we found out that Mommy’s tumor is growing again,” Zara says. “She doesn’t remember much anymore, but she still remembers you. She... she doesn't have much of a filter anymore either, so she’ll just blurt things out to me that I don’t think she would tell me if she was all there. We were talking about love the other day, and she... she said that she's been in love with three men in her life, and that... just one is still alive. I assume the living one is Daddy, and I know the man she dated right before him died last year, but I wondered... I found this picture, and... I noticed that she's looking at you in the same way that she looked at Daddy in their pictures later. I always knew she'd loved you, but... I never would have thought it was because she was *in* love with you once." Zara's hands tremble so much that she can barely hold the picture. "That would explain a lot," she says. "If part of her was still in love with you all along. But it wouldn't even matter now. You're gone. You've been gone. But sometimes she doesn't even remember that. Sometimes she’ll get confused and think you’re still alive, that none of it happened. Yesterday she promised to take me to Windows on the World one day, and I didn't even bother reminding her that it's gone. She forgets that Grandma and Grandpa are gone now, too. Every time someone reminds her that they’re gone, or that you’re gone, she cries like she just found out. She forgets so much, but when she forgets you, we’ll know it's over. But when she forgets you, it won’t matter anymore...” The recording has shut off, but no one dares to move. Zara’s sniffles turn to sobs. “...because when she forgets you... it won’t be long until you’re together again.