"What was your first thought?"
Her jaw tenses.
"Maureen please."
She finds his hand under the table— she squeezes.
"No, I'd like to know."
She looks up from her plate.
"I don't know what you're picking at but—" She swallows. And when she looks into her sister in law's eyes something snaps. "You really want to know?"
"I do, yes."
She shrugs. "Okay." She chuckles.
"Elizabeth," Henry warns.
"No, she wants to know," she says, holding Maureen's eye.
"Maybe we should—"
"Should we take it back to the very beginning?" She asks. "The first beheading footage that was broadcasted, or maybe my first trip to Iraq." She shrugs. "How about the car bomb that killed two of my closest friends. The bomb that almost killed me?"
"I—" Maureen begins.
"Or are you referring to the moment I first realized that those people in the towers would rather plummet seventy-two—" Her lip quivers. "Eighty-nine stories to the ground instead of being burned alive."
"That's not—"
"That's not what you were asking?" She nods. "Well after you've experienced what I have—" She points a finger towards her chest. "—what my colleagues have, what those people in the towers have, then you can ask me that question."
She sighs and picks up her silverware from the table. "Can you pass the green beans please?" She asks Henry.