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Going on, small step by small step
©New York Times
© St. Petersburg Times, NEW YORK -- "Mommy, is Daddy dead?" The little boy said it right there at the Burger King. "Yes, Aidan, Daddy is dead," said his mother, Marian Fontana. She decided that the raw truth about her husband, Dave, was best. Daddy was buried in the rubble of the World Trade Center trying to save people's lives, and he died doing something good. The boy thought about this for a moment. "You're a liar," he decided. "Daddy's not dead." So the little boy planned a welcome-home party, and his mother planned a funeral. The struggle between denial and acceptance occupies the lives of those left behind by Dave Fontana, one of 12 firefighters from Squad 1 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, who were lost in the attack on the twin towers. It resounds in a wistful 5-year-old son and a heartbreakingly practical widow. The story of death has been well-documented these past weeks. But there is also the matter of living. The family of Dave Fontana, a 10-year veteran of the Fire Department, are dealing with living in their own ways. His son, Aidan, talks about a party that will never be. His wife, Marian, prepares for a funeral without a body. When the people of Squad 1, an elite fire and rescue unit, speak of Sept. 11, their eyes settle on some point far away. They are the same eyes as the widow's. Guilt is part of it. Many of the firemen had asked others to work for them that day. Marian asked her husband to work the night shift so they could be together for their anniversary. Then there is a boy who just wants his father. The lives of Marian and Aidan Fontana and that of others connected with Squad 1 are certain to intersect over the next year in ways both predictable and unexpected. Their stories will reveal the paths so many close to the decimated department will have to navigate -- the thousands of firefighters, hundreds of widows, and their children. For now, their steps are small. It is about finding ways to go on. A 35-year-old artist, Mrs. Fontana canceled her one-woman comedy show set for January. "I know Dave would tell me to go ahead and do it," she said, "I just don't think I could laugh, though." These days, she spends her time going to funerals and working on the details of her husband's pension. Their son, at least, has school, but they all talk about his dad there. On the weekends, the little family looks for places to drive to that don't remind them of him. But quietly, Marian Fontana allows herself the memory of her husband. He died at the age of 37 on Sept. 11 -- their eighth anniversary. He was one of those rugged men. He was big and muscular with dimples, a square jaw with a cleft. He wore a crew cut and had serious eyes set back. He was a college graduate who majored in sculpture. He took yoga classes next to the firehouse. The women at Public School 321 called him Mr. Mom. He read to the children there. He was the only firefighter from the station house who lived in the neighborhood, and he was popular. Fontana was known as the type of man that other men wish they could be. He was a doer, a good husband and a better father. He was a firefighter not because he needed the benefits, but because he could help someone else. It was a beautiful morning when he came off the night shift on Sept. 11. He called his wife and told her to meet him at 9. Then the call came. Five alarms. The time of day would prove especially deadly -- a shift change when the crews overlapped. Eleven men piled on the two trucks and raced through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. "A lot of guys around here think, "It should have been me,' " said firefighter Sean Cummins, who was supposed to be on duty but switched because his mother was flying back to Dublin. "But you can't think that way. You just can't think that way." His voice drifted off and he thought about the man who drew his straw, a name he will not mention. The men in the squad learned the depth of their loss when they arrived at the fire house and Timmy Rogers, the senior man, said, "I think we lost a lot of guys." Cummins spent three consecutive weeks on the pile, searching for friends and strangers, crawling through holes, rapping on steel girders. "Why me?" Cummins asks his wife. And she has no answer, because there is no answer. And Marian Fontana asks herself the same thing. The smell of her husband on his clothes makes her sad. Wine salves the sadness, but then the morning comes and his side of the bed is still empty. Her sister, Leah Gray, is helping with the details of the funeral and the care of Aidan. Marian and Aidan are something of celebrities in Park Slope since Dave's death. The neighbors whisper things like "How is he doing?" The boy can hear them. In the neighborhood, the fliers for the missing and dead are papered over with ads for apartments. The leaves are changing and falling. Sean Cummins digs through the rubble, and Marian Fontana plans a funeral.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times wire desk
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