I was quite spoiled and he could be a little dour. But on that terrible day, when he was just two blocks away when the South Tower exploded, I realised he was all I wanted
I
met Chris in the college bar in 1997. I was part of a group of visiting American students visiting the University of Oxford – we kept ourselves to ourselves in the first few weeks of term – and he leaned over from the next table to talk to me. I saw his one-dimpled smile and the cocky way he tipped his chair back on two legs and I thought: “Uh-oh, here’s trouble.”
Despite the fact that I was only at Oxford for one term, we quickly became a couple – and stayed together. When he finished university and started working in London, I returned to North Carolina to finish my English degree. We visited each other when we could. He made a surprise appearance at my 21st birthday party; we spent a New Year’s Eve in Paris.
After graduation, I moved to London to do an MA and also – mostly – to be near Chris. Then I moved to New York to work in publishing, and a year later he joined me to work for an American bank. We rented a place together and lived the life of childless twentysomethings in Manhattan: long working hours, long drinking hours, long summer weekends in a shared house on Fire Island.
