All We Have Left

The attack of the World Trade Center by jet planes weaponized and used as bombs by terrorists created a shock and trauma that will endure indefinitely within the collective consciousness of America. The last attack on American soil by another power had occurred when Pearl Harbor was bombed at the start of World War II. Since that time, America had developed a sense of domestic invincibility in terms of potential damage by foreign powers. The towers of the World Trade Center were the world’s tallest buildings at the time of their completion in 1973; they came to symbolize American power, achievement and prosperity. Similarly, their destruction and the loss of over 3,000 civilian lives on that date, and those lost within ensuing decades due to exposure to toxins emitted during the blasts, served to create a sense of American insecurity and doubt. While the residents of New York City, the country and the world rallied to the support of those most severely impacted by this loss, the psychic wounds inflicted by the attack still exist on the part of survivors, their families, and the families of those lost in the attacks.

Jesse lives with the psychological repercussions of her father’s angry, embittered retreat to alcohol in order to numb himself to the loss of his son, Travis, in the tragedy. Convinced that Travis behaved as a coward when he ran from the scene of a vicious mugging to secure help for his grandfather, Jesse’s father forbids any mention of his son within the family home. He has removed himself from the emotional lives of his wife and daughter and has developed a phobic reaction to followers of Islam. His younger son, Hank, flees to charitable work in Africa in order to remove himself from a home devoid of affection and happiness. Even Jesse, essentially a noble character, succumbs to the cynical influence of Nick, who persuades her to join him on an anti-Islamic graffiti campaign in the community. While she is eventually saved from this influence by a physical fall sustained while spray painting the Islamic Peace Center, Jesse is descending into a dark and bitter worldview spawned by hatred spewed by hardened family members of those who attribute loss and injury to all Muslims, rather than to the actions of a misguided few.