Edit "Eddie" Marie Janko

"My name is Edit Marie Janko," she began hesitantly. "But everyone calls me Eddie."

"I was starting my senior year in high school," Eddie went on, uncomfortable in the confines of the box. She had insisted that if she did this, she would only do it in private. So here they were. In the windowless room in the heart of the 12th precinct.

"We had just started our second class of the day when we heard this loud boom and the windows rattled. We kind of looked at each other, trying to figure out what had happened, when someone ran in and told the teacher something. He was in a panic and the teacher… I think it was Mrs. Barnes… had to calm him before she could understand."

Eddie scrunched her face, trying to remember something she had wanted to forget. "My high school was close enough to the World Trade Center that we were affected, but not so close that damage was caused to the building when it went down, so-to-speak." She took a breath. "We were told to shelter in place for the moment. At the time, we thought it was just a plane crash. But when the second plane crashed, we knew it wasn't." She looked at Sean. "Can we stop for a minute?"

Sean nodded his head and stopped the recording. "You OK?" he asked her.

She breathed once and looked up at Jamie as he stood next the Sean. "I want to tell you something," she said. "My mom died in the South Tower. They found an …" she stopped, trying not to cry. "They found one of her arms." She shook her head. "That's all. Just an arm."

"My god, Eddie!" Jamie exclaimed and came forward to grab her hand. "Why didn't you ever tell me?!"

She released Jamie's hand and signaled Sean to start recording again so he hit the button. "I couldn't even talk about it for the longest time."

"What happened after you were told to shelter in place?" Sean asked.

Eddie swallowed and went on. "We were moved to the rooms on the opposite side of the building from the towers and they explained what was going on. Many kids had family who worked in the Towers. Like my mom." She stopped to swipe at tears in her eyes and Sean pulled a box of tissue from the camera bag to hand to her. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose before going on.

"It seemed like forever before they made the decision to let us go home," she said. "Most of us were standing in the schoolyard when the South Tower fell. My mom was working for an insurance company I can't remember the name of on one of the upper floors. I just stared. Watched in horror. Somehow, at that moment, I knew I was watching my mom die."

She paused to wipe her eyes and nose again. "They herded those of us still there back into the school, but I avoided them by hiding under the stairs. I came out of the hiding place in time to see the second tower fall." Jamie took her hand again and she looked up at him as if to thank him. "I just started running. It took me awhile before I realized I was running towards where the towers once stood. Only they weren't there anymore."

"Where did you end up?" Sean asked.

"It wasn't until I was surrounded by the dust from the towers," she said. "That I stopped running. It was so quiet. The people around me were walking out and I almost thought they were zombies. People killed in the collapse but had come back to roam the earth and eat brains." She shook her head. "Not funny, I know, but I tried to search their faces to see if any of them were my mom, but she wasn't there." She looked up at Sean. "I ended up at the church…"

"St Paul's Chapel?"

Eddie nodded. "I was screaming for my mom and just sobbing when a cop grabbed my arm," she said. "He asked me my name and I told him. He told me his name, but in my state of mind, I didn't catch it." She shook her head with her nose wrinkled. "He was so filthy I don't think I could recognize him again if he slapped me across the face. But he was kind and he took me around and showed me that my mom wasn't there. He offered to walk me back to school as maybe she had made it out and went there for me, but I told him I could walk back myself and he was needed there."

"He insisted, though, and walked me the distance to my school where Mrs. Barnes was looking for me." She cleared her throat and swallowed the knot there before she went on. "The officer told my teacher his name, but I was in my own nightmare world and didn't hear what he said that time either. Or I just forgot since." She released Jamie's hand to take a swig from the water bottle on the table next to her. She took a deep breath and went on. "I seem to remember raiding the snack machines to send back to the chapel so they would have something to eat." She shook her head. "The rest of the day was like a fog. Dad came for me and we drove up to stay a few days with friends in Boston. It was almost four months later that they identified mom's arm. That was all. Just her arm."

She pulled herself back into the now and sat up straight. "What else do you want to know?"

"They guy who found you," Sean said. "What would you say to him?"

She seemed to mull the question over for a minute. "I'd thank him," she said. "For more than just helping me that day."

"What else would you thank him for?"

"Where I am," she said. "He told me about how practically his whole family had been cops. And how he was glad he was one because it meant he got to help people like me. To be there for them… and me on that day of all days." She nodded briskly. "That was what made me decide to be a cop."

"Wow," Jamie said. "You never told me that."

"Well," Eddie went on. "After my dad was arrested for the Ponzi scheme, I thought it would never happen, but here I am."

Sean smiled. "That's a great ending to a very sad story." He turned the camera off.

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Author's note: The way Eddie talks about her mother on the show, I assumed she is dead. When trying to figure out what Eddie would tell Sean for his assignment, I thought that maybe her mom died on 9/11. I needed a story about someone who had lost a family member so I figured Eddie could be it. Especially since she rarely talks about her mom. I thought this would explain why.

Dedicated to the people who lost their lives in the towers that day and to the families that remain. I do not live in New York, nor do I remember the time I spent there as an infant, but my heart was with you that day.