Three Nights, Three Men, Three Dreams  by Marilynn M. Wilkins
part 1 of 2  It was yesterday’s panic attack, the crying and
rage that prompted Beatrice to accept the offer of a weekend
trip to Raleigh. On the way to Dallas Love Field, she recalled
the scene in her mother’s kitchen as she pounded her fists on
the counter and screamed repeatedly. “Why did you take the suit
to the cleaners? Why the hell did you have the suit cleaned?”
The suit, besides being a classy black suit, was the one she
wore on September 11, 2001. Her mother made a simple mistake.
She didn’t know that Beatrice felt cleaning the suit violated
the memory of the people whose bodies she watched fall to the
pavement below the Twin Towers, that she wanted to preserve the
blood and bits of tissue clinging to the fabric, hold in her
memory the scene of the first plane crashing into the towers.
On 9/11,she and two business associates from The New York Stock
Exchange witnessed the impact of the first jet as they stood on
the street a mere three