| A pregnant mother
Margaret Cheung, 31, was waiting for her son Kyle, 10, at dismissal time. She works at Federated Merchandising at 11 Penn Plaza and she could see the World Trade Center from work. She was making photocopies when a secretary rushed over to tell her a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. They walked over the other side of the building and saw the second plane tear through the South Tower. “The first plane I thought was an accident,” said Cheung. “The second I thought was a terrorist. We were listening to the radio and when I heard that the Pentagon was hit, I ran out to pick up my son.” Cheung, who is late in a second pregnancy, marched more than a hundred blocks to mid-town to pick up Kyle and then back home to Chinatown where they turned on the news. “He asked, ‘Why did they do that?’ From his point of view, he was asking, ‘Why did they mess up my life?’” Cheung said. “He wanted to know how they got onto the airplane, was it safe to go on trips, why weren’t the doors locked?” “I didn’t want him to generalize that it was a group of people that did this, because this is an international school with kids whose parents work at the U.N. We talked about how we’re all Americans here.” Yesterday, they spent the day together. “We went out to get something to eat, but the stores were closed. We played video games. We surfed the Internet to get more information and look for pictures,” said Cheung. Kyle talked to his friends, though he had to settle for e-mailing them and not hearing their voices because strangely, modems were connecting, but regular phones weren’t. Kyle said he didn’t know why terrorists would crash planes into the World Trade Center but adds, “I think whatever their reason is, it’s a dumb reason.” A pregnant mother |
