All We Have Left

by Wendy Mills

The first pages are the news articles that our local paper does every year on the anniversary of 9/11. They all say the same thing, that Travis was eighteen when he died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, that he was a recent graduate of our town’s high school, and that he played in a popular local band. There’s not much else, because as far as I know my parents never talk to the reporter when she calls every year. The articles always show the same sly-eyed graduation photo of Travis in a tux, like it is the only picture ever taken of him. No one in my family ever says much about Travis. Hank used to talk about him some, before he decided to drop an arsenal of bombshells all over Christmas three years ago, and the resulting Dad-sized explosion blasted him out of our lives for good. But he only talked about Travis as a big brother, funny stories like the time Travis chased Hank so high up a tree they had to call the fire department to get him down, or how they used to play football with me when I was a little kid, and I was the football. But he never said a word about what happened to Travis on 9/11.