The residents of Watertown had it even worse than we did. Police believed that the suspect was hiding out somewhere around the Watertown/Cambridge line, and they essentially had the town cordoned off. All the roads leading into Watertown were closed and the police were doing door-to-door searches. Very scary stuff, even from afar (ok, from 2 miles away). Unfamiliar too.
Natalia and I have not discussed any of this week's events with the kids. I think we're lucky that they and their friends are so young and largely uninterested in breaking news. We were careful to mute the TV (or just change the channel altogether) when they came into the room, though I think Andres suspected that something big was going on--he tends to pick up on these sorts of things, even if he doesn't know the specific details. I'm expecting some questions about it in the next few weeks. I'm sure I should take the lead and begin a conversation about these events before he hears fantastical stories about it at school (which will likely happen), but I just don't want to broach the subject of terror and murder until I have to. Part of their innocence dies the moment that they try to process something like this. They will confront an unkind world soon enough; let them remain babes for as long as possible.
I was up well past midnight watching coverage of the initial carjacking and murder at MIT; at that point, nobody knew that those events were related to the marathon bombing. But questions emerged about why so many federal agencies were involved in the search for the suspect...and by the time I went to bed at 3:30 am, all three local channels were reporting that the people behind the evening's chaos were also the ones who terrorized the marathon. I didn't want to go to bed but I knew I would be a mess if I pulled an all-nighter and then had to deal with kids the next day.
So we five were on lockdown. The kids watched PBS this morning while Natalia and I tried to catch up on the news from the night. After TV and, finally, breakfast, Celia and Andres spent most of the morning within 15 feet of each other. This was painful. They are magnets, one positive and one negative, inseparable despite levying accusations of unfairness and belligerence on the other party. This behavior is most pronounced on days when I wish they would find small corners of the house and play independently. Today, their pattern of nice play, hostilities, and tears went in 30-minute cycles, which gave me enough time to follow the news and pay some bills, but little time for anything else.
But really, what else could I do? Every time I looked outside I expected to see a 19 year-old fugitive jumping over the fence in my backyard, pursued by a SWAT team. I checked out every car that drove down our street. At one point I heard a siren on River Street and thought that the pursuit was heading our way...but it was gone in a flash, likely just an EMS response to a routine event around here. Natalia and I were on edge the whole day.
We exhausted our indoor go-to activities pretty quickly. Just Dance 4 on the Wii was followed by a Laurie Berkner dance party, then by a puzzle. At some point they ate PB&J's and bickered with each other over lunch. Time crawled.
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| Andres entertained himself with some indoor gymnastics. |
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| Lucia was in a good mood, playing with her bunny and sucking her toes. |
By mid-afternoon Natalia and I deemed it to be movie time. Andres and Celia had managed their sibling detente for long enough. Our reward was Thumbelina for her and Cars for him; a double feature served on separate screens in separate rooms. Finally, 90 minutes of peace and quiet.
The conclusion of the manhunt unhappily coincided with our evening routines. Around dinner, the police announced that they were lifting the lockdown for all areas--including Watertown!--even though they had not found the suspect yet. They advised all to go about their normal business but to be very vigilant. This brought little relief...with a suspected terrorist still in the area, how could anything really return to normal? I ushered the kids outside for some much-needed fresh air, but we were back inside after 20 minutes as it was getting dark and I wanted to get them bathed and into bed. It had been a long day for all of us.
As I was running water for the bath, Natalia told me that the news was reporting gunfire in Watertown. So for the next hour, my attention was divided between bathtime/storytime and my phone, as I was following developments on twitter. This was wholly unfair to my kids--I know I should be mentally present whenever I am with them, but events were happening too quickly and too close to my home, and I couldn't pull my attention away from the news. I eventually got them clean, changed, and comfortable in their beds and, after wishing them good night, I headed downstairs to relax (?) in front of the television to watch the conclusion of the day's events. It was surreal to know that the eyes of the nation were on a neighborhood so close to mine...and one that we had almost decided to live in, to boot.
Thankfully it all ended without the explosive climax that many people feared. The suspect was eventually taken into custody due to the restraint of the police and the skills of a hostage negotiator, and as he was whisked away in an ambulance (he had been injured in the firefight the night before), people who had been lining the streets of Watertown for hours erupted in cheers. It reminded me of the scene in Brighton when the Red Sox had finally won the World Series in '04. But this was obviously very different. Back then, we were celebrating an end to futility. Now, the cheers were celebrating the capture of someone who had terrorized the city for a week, the long-term results of which were only starting to be felt.
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