Sept. 11 made Karen Carlucci a widow before she was a bride
By Michael Luo
Associated Press
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| Peter Frank and his fiancee, Karen Carlucci, dance together at a wedding in this August 1999 photo. The couple planned to wed in October 2001, but Frank died in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11.
AP Photo/Courtesy of Karen Carlucci |
She had canceled everything else: the hall, the band, the flowers, the honeymoon. She had put her engagement ring back in its box.
But she wanted this, she decided. The jeweler didn't know what to say, so he just handed it to her.
She slipped the thick platinum band onto her right ring finger — and vowed to go on.
"The engagement ring represented us being engaged. This," she said, fingering the band, "now represents a new time in my life but still connected to him."
For Karen, 29, the timing of Sept. 11 was especially cruel. She and Peter Christopher Frank, 29, were to be married in a little more than a month. She was supposed to wear Vera Wang. Louis Armstrong's, "A Kiss to Build a Dream On," was to be their first song.
He already had his bachelor's party. Her bachelorette was supposed to be in a week and a half. The honeymoon was planned for St. Bart's and Anguilla. They were going to build a future together.
Instead, the dates that were once eagerly anticipated have marched steadily by, transformed into milestones of loss.
She finds herself overwhelmed at times. The planes that sliced through the trade center destroyed not just concrete, steel and lives but futures, like hers.
"We were about to get married," she said. "How do I move on from that?"
Yet, in small, tentative steps, she has begun to do just that.
She's gone back to work — part-time. She can now stay by herself in the Manhattan apartment they once shared, although she still spends most of her time at her parents' home in New Jersey. She's mustered the enthusiasm to go out with friends again, even hitting the dance floor on his 30th birthday.
She's learning to work around the hole in her heart, said her mother, Elaine Carlucci. "You'll always carry the ache. . .You learn to incorporate it and go on."
The Red Cross and Safe Horizon have helped Karen, but she's gotten nothing from other groups because she is only a fiancee, not a spouse.
People don't seem to understand that families today are more than just married couples with children, she said.
Karen still remembers when she first met him, six years ago. He turned around in the bar and looked her straight in the eye. "Nice to meet you," he said.
She was taken aback by his confidence. "Who does he think he is?" she thought.
Later on the dance floor, they flirted. Outside, he asked if he would ever see her again.
"Probably not," she said, before speeding away in a cab, leaving him standing in the middle of the street.
But something about this former college football player with the movie-star looks got to her. Like teen-agers at a slumber party, she and her giggling friends called a slew of Peter Franks in the phone book at 4 a.m., looking for him.
She got his number a few days later from a mutual friend. Their first date was in an Italian restaurant, one of his prime date spots, she later learned.
He was more handsome than the guys she usually went for. He could be a J. Crew model, she thought. Later, when investigators asked Karen if he had any identifying birthmarks or scars, she almost blurted out, "Look for the perfect man. That's what he is."
He seemed very focused to her, as he explained his job as an asset manager. He wanted to be successful; to make a lot of money.
He proved to be a romancer. He brought her flowers and introduced her to the opera. They went to museums and on long walks. They splurged on expensive meals.
Before long, Karen was helping take care of Chavez, his rambunctious 1-year-old boxer. She met his parents, Peter and Connie. He met hers, Bill and Elaine.
She admired his individuality, how he went off on trips to Venezuela and Peru by himself. He liked her idealism, that she had gotten a master's degree in social work.
She remembers their first argument, the first time she allowed herself to get nasty with him.
"Uh oh, is this our first fight?" he said, teasing her, annoying her to no end.
They had their ups and downs. They even separated briefly, but they got back together. It just seemed to work.
After dating for three years, they decided to move in together. It seemed like the natural step. They weren't ready for marriage yet.
Their apartment in Greenwich Village faced south, toward the World Trade Center. Carlucci took a picture from the window and hung it in their bedroom.
A year ago, Pete got a call to come in for an interview at Fred Alger Management, on the 93rd floor of the north tower. Initially, Pete was afraid he might be overmatched. But David Alger, the firm's president, immediately took a liking to Pete, chatting him up about his days as a backup quarterback at the University of Delaware.
Last Christmas Eve, the couple stayed at Carlucci's parents' house in Florham Park, N.J. In the morning, Pete told Karen's father that he was going to ask Karen to marry him. Bill Carlucci cried.
Pete originally planned to ask her on New Year's Eve, at a bed and breakfast on Long Island, but a blizzard socked the area. Karen wondered why he was so upset about the change of plans.
They went the following week. Walking along the beach, Pete stopped suddenly.
"Hey buddy, I have a question for you," he said.
Karen remembered the sun was in her eyes. "I couldn't see a darn thing."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring, a gorgeous emerald cut diamond with baguettes.
Afterward, Karen remembered him being quiet, reflective.
They quickly picked a location and set a date. After hearing a band at another wedding, they booked them. Karen looked at dozens of dresses before picking a strapless gown that was simple yet elegant.
"The beauty of the dress came from Karen," Elaine Carlucci said.
They went back and forth on the honeymoon, before settling on a pair of less commercialized Caribbean islands. Pete booked a villa. They were going to fly first-class.
The weekend before Sept. 11 was his bachelor's party. Glenn Conte, a childhood friend, drove him down to Atlantic City to meet up with the guys. His friends remember him seeming at peace, as he sat on the beach with them.
"He was at this point in his life where he was so content," Conte said.
On the morning of Sept. 11, Pete put on a dark-gray suit he had just gotten tailored. Later, when investigators asked, Karen couldn't remember what color tie he was wearing.
He headed for the door. She remembered looking up suddenly as he headed out, thinking they hadn't properly bid farewell. She opened her mouth to call to him, but the door had already closed behind him.
"I specifically remember thinking I didn't say good-bye to him," she said.
At 8:41 a.m., Pete sent an e-mail from his office to the groomsmen in his wedding, reminding them to get measured for their tuxedos.
At work, Karen was preparing for a meeting when she heard the news. She dialed his number. She couldn't get through.
She e-mailed him: "I heard a plane hit the World Trade Center. Are you okay?"
The phone began ringing with other people. Everyone tried to remain upbeat. His sister, Michelle, insisted that he must be walking home.
Conte, who worked nearby, came to wait with Karen at the apartment later that afternoon. They tried not to pay attention to the news as the evening stretched on.
A crisis worker called and asked a series of questions: What was he wearing? Did he have any scars? Did he have a wedding band?
No, she said, miserably. Not yet.
Going to bed was horrible. "I could not believe, 'I'm going to bed, in our bed, without him,"' she said. "Meanwhile, outside my window is a puff of smoke and that's where he is."
The next day, Conte and Colin McDermott, another groomsman, escorted her back to New Jersey. When she got home, she went into her room. With her mother at her side, she broke down.
Her feelings were a jumble, from desperate grief to anger. She was angry at him, for not coming home. She was angry at Alger, for making him work so hard. She was angry at the American government, for not being better prepared.
She returned on Thursday to pick up some stuff. She grabbed random keepsakes, like cards from him and trinkets from his travels. She gave a piece of jade from Peru, a symbol of good luck, to Conte, who was posting fliers, making calls and checking hospitals.
The Friday after Sept. 11, she told her mother, "We have to cancel everything."
Many of the vendors cried on the phone with them. Some sent heartfelt notes of condolence. The wedding photographer came by with a book on spirituality.
A week later, she walked around the armory, looking at the hundreds of fliers. She found his. In magic marker, next to Pete's face, she wrote, "I love you. I miss you."
On Sept. 22, the day that was to be her bachelorette party, she went to his memorial service at St. Anastasia Church in Queens. The best man, John Kavanagh, delivered a eulogy.
"On Oct. 19, Karen's father would have given her away," he said. "Today, we're giving Pete away."
For her wedding day, Karen gathered everyone together. She wanted to do something to mark the evening. She put on a red dress. They had food catered.
Karen's younger brother played the violin, just as he would have at the wedding. A book was passed around in which everyone wrote their memories.
The day after was the lowest point. Instead of waking up with her husband, Karen woke up alone, her wedding dress still in its plastic wrapping.
Another Sept. 11 fiancee whom Karen talked to put it well: They are widows before they had the chance to become brides.
She has put together a scrapbook. She pasted in a collection of messages that Kavanagh gathered from the groomsmen. Like this one from Gavin Garrison, one of his roommates at Delaware:
"Moving on with our lives seems impossible, but we must help each other find a way, because somewhere, this very moment, you can hear him say, 'Don't quit on me. Don't you dare quit on me!"'
At Alger, a victims' foundation has been set up. A company official told Karen it was only for "families" but that the company was exploring how it might help her.
The response upset her. Pete was building a future for them, she said. He would want her taken care of.
Pete's mother, Connie, who lives on Long Island, says now that they've lost Pete, they don't want to lose Karen, too.
She doesn't call Carlucci her daughter-in-law. "I say, Karen, my daughter," she said.
They were only a month away from the wedding day, she said. "What does that mean? It means nothing in the world of life."
Pete was supposed to be the godfather of his sister Michelle's baby. At the christening a few weeks ago, she asked Karen to take his place.
Carlucci is now able to smile, even joke a little.
Pete always kidded around about how painful it would be for him to settle down, she said. "I can't believe he managed to skip out in between his bachelor party and the wedding."
She bought a big stuffed dog to keep her company in the apartment. She took down the picture of the trade center on the wall. In its place, she hung a cross.
She's started to venture out more, having dinner with friends and even going to a party for one of her bridesmaids.
For Pete's 30th birthday, on Dec. 1, she went out with a group of his friends. In contrast to earlier occasions, the mood was light. They told stories about him and laughed. When a good song came on, Carlucci danced freely. This, she said, is what he would have wanted.
They raised their glasses. She did, too.
To Peter Frank.
