MY BREASTS ACHED. I glanced down quickly to make sure I wasn’t leaking, as that would qualify as a disaster. I was sitting at the Nightly News desk, wired up with microphone and IFB, ready to anchor any special reports. It was late September 2001 and that had been my assignment since returning to work on September 12. These days, urgent bulletins seemed to occur with alarming frequency.
“Can I get up for thirty minutes?” I asked.
“Sure. Brokaw just got in, so we’re covered. We’ll see you later.”
I headed back to my office, where our nanny, Sherry Daisy, was playing with Sophie on the carpeted floor. Originally from Trinidad, Sherry managed to be both relaxed and thoroughly capable, with a quick laugh and loving personality our daughter adored. I also admired Sherry’s serenity, which she attributed to her deep faith. Sherry had been bringing Sophie to the office for a few days to ease the transition for me and my baby, as I’d come back to work earlier than I’d expected. Of course I’d also taken the opportunity to parade my first child shamelessly through the halls of Dateline, Today, and Nightly News, introducing her to friends and colleagues.
Sophie looked up and blew me a raspberry. “Thank goodness you brought her in,” said Mary Casalino, assistant to the correspondents. “She cheers everybody up.”
Sherry stepped out of my office and I closed the door and settled back on the sofa, relieved to nurse. Outside, the spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral pricked the bright blue sky as bagpipes wailed. I usually loved the fierce, ragged music. It reminded me of my last trip to Scotland, where I’d hooked up with dear pals and their families, including Fiona, whom I’d met in Charlotte, and Lizzie, who’d flown to Australia for my wedding. But now the pipes sounded melancholy, forlorn. Another funeral for another firefighter. I pulled Sophie to me tightly and she drew back in puzzled alarm. I forced myself to relax both my body and my expression and she settled back to work.
I’d witnessed a great deal of heartache and misery in my professional career and had never grown accustomed to it. But the disasters I’d covered had taken place in another town, another state, another country. Terror had been something I could escape. Not this time.
While we’d been incredibly fortunate, New York was a city in mourning, Manhattan an island of anxiety. You could smell fear in the putrid, smoky air. Hear it in the sound of circling fighter jets. See it on the faces of rifle-toting cops manning bridges and tunnels. Feel it in the way your abdomen twisted when you walked past fading, tattered posters of those beloved men and women who’d never come home, past makeshift shrines of candles and teddy bears, past firehouses draped in bunting.
As a new mother, I realized I felt both intensely protective and excruciatingly vulnerable, keenly aware that, for the first time in my life, I was responsible not just for myself, but for our baby. Suddenly, living on the eighteenth floor seemed too close to the sky. How would I carry her down so many flights of stairs in an emergency? And if I made it to the street, how would I make it off the island? After 9/11 we’d watched those vital exits slam shut, leaving millions of us under lockdown. Pitching dangerously between extreme emotions, I’d felt as if I might capsize, and had been grateful to return to work, where covering the travails of others was an instant reminder that my small, wonderful family was only one of so many cast adrift in a violent, bewildering storm.
Sophie sat up. I buttoned my blouse, put on my jacket, and opened the blinds to let the incongruously cheerful sunshine stream in. I gave my bright-eyed girl a parting hug and kiss. I knew it was time to end her visits to the office, much as I enjoyed them. While having her close by made me feel that she was safer, I also knew she needed a rhythm and routine I couldn’t give her at the office. “Thanks for bringing her in, Sherry. I’ll see you both this evening.”
ON OCTOBER 12, I was alone in my office when the phone rang. “Get down to the studio. Now.”
I walked as rapidly as I dared toward the studio elevator, knowing that to run would only leave me sounding breathless and out of control. As I got off the elevator, I saw my friend Andi running toward me with a panicked expression. “Sara! There’s anthrax in the building!”
I stopped and shook my head as if to clear my ears. It almost felt as though she were speaking underwater, the words thick and muffled as they echoed in my mind. “What are you talking about?”
“Here! There’s anthrax right here, on this floor!”
It had been just over a week since Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson had stunned the nation, reporting that a Florida photo editor had contracted anthrax. Sixty-three-year-old Robert Stevens had died the next day. Testing by the Centers for Disease Control revealed anthrax spores in his workplace and the chilling fact that several other people had been exposed. Someone, somewhere, had turned anthrax into a lethal weapon and was sending spores through the mail, leaving the entire country on edge less than a month after 9/11. My Dateline producer friend Roberta Oster Sachs, now married and a mom, had confessed she’d begun taking Cipro just in case. “It’s the only antibiotic that’s strong enough. But the supply is limited. They’ll run out of it if there’s a major attack.”
“But that’s not going to happen,” I’d insisted. All the same, Andrew and I made sure Sophie was nowhere near when we opened our mail. I couldn’t help but think back to the film Ginger had proposed, and how foolish it seemed now to think of anthrax only as an African scourge. It was happening here. How wrong I’d been.
Suddenly the whispers were everywhere, and then someone handed me the NBC News press release which I would read on the air. An anthrax-tainted letter had been sent to Tom Brokaw and been opened by his assistant, who had contracted anthrax on her skin and was being treated with antibiotics. I felt a wave of nausea. I knew Tom’s assistant, Erin O’Connor. She was a lovely woman and also the mother of a toddler, and I hoped she’d be okay. Meanwhile it seemed the entire third floor—including the studio where I was about to do the special report—was considered contaminated, and uncertainty and anxiety permeated the air, invisible but toxic. Mary Kahler, a makeup artist, had tears in her eyes as she thrust a thin paper mask into my hand. “You take it, Sara. You’re a mom.”
I shook my head, incredibly touched, and hugged her. “No, Mary! Thanks, you keep it. Though I’m afraid these don’t do much. Listen, let’s try not to worry yet.”
But as I turned toward the phone, there was no way I could take my own advice. My fear was boiling over and I had just moments before I went on the air. I punched in my husband’s work number, and when he answered, the words tumbled out in a barely comprehensible jumble.
“Andrew, I’m about to anchor a special report because Tom just rushed out to Mayor Giuliani’s press conference because—there’s anthrax here at NBC.”
“Sara, slow down.” The calm voice of the man I loved and trusted cut through the chaos. I tried to rein myself in. “I’m not worried about me, Andrew, it’s Sophie! Oh God, I’ve taken our baby all over these halls. We even visited Tom in his office, near where Erin opened the letter, and I’ve got to go now and can you call—”
“I’ll handle it,” Andrew interrupted, his even voice cracking for the first time before it steadied again as he said, “I’ll call Dr. Lancry, and Dr. Davies, and I’ll find out what we do.”
“I love you.”
“You too. It’ll be okay.”
And then it was time to be on air. In my ear I heard the voice of Specials producer Beth O’Connell from the control room, addressing me by the nickname she’d used since I’d first met her at the Today show nearly ten years before. “Young Sara. Breathe. Just breathe. Okay? We’ll get someone back here to check on Sophie, too.”
I nodded. It all felt surreal. At NBC we covered news, we weren’t part of it. But I knew my husband was doing everything that could be done for our daughter at that moment, and I had to do my job. I found my voice and pressed down, down, down until I hit a surprising well of calm as the pounding music ended and a deep voice announced, “This is an NBC News Special Report. Here’s Sara James.”
And so began a report that hardly seemed real to me, a report that began, “We have learned that there has been another case of anthrax, this one a cutaneous one, here at NBC.”
WITHIN A FEW hours, both the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control had set up a command center at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Everyone in the affected area was given a nasal swab and advised to do exactly what I had questioned my friend for doing—take Cipro. It was the only known antidote to anthrax.
“But what about my daughter?” I asked after explaining our situation, because I knew she was too young to take the powerful drug. “And what about our nanny?”
The sympathetic CDC agent spoke in a measured voice. “Your nanny needs to take Cipro, just like you. And your daughter—she can take another antibiotic that is milder.”
“But that won’t work, will it?” I pressed.
“Let’s not worry about that yet. She may not even have been exposed. And by the way, you’ll have to stop nursing. Cipro penetrates breast milk.”
I turned away so that he wouldn’t see that I was on the verge of weeping. I had planned to nurse Sophie until she was a year old. He put his hand on my arm. “Look. You’re not the only one. There are women here who are pregnant. They’ve got tough choices, too.”
The tears froze. How selfish I’d been. Please, God, I prayed. Just let Sophie be okay.
The next morning was Saturday, but when the phone rang at 9 A.M. it was an investigator from the CDC asking if Sophie had started her antibiotics. I said yes.
“Good. Very good. And how is she?”
“She’s fine.” I paused. “She has a rash under her arm and a mild cough,” I confessed, “but I’m sure it’s just a cold.”
I heard his sharp intake of breath. “I am advising you to take Sophie to your pediatrician. Now. We won’t get the nasal swabs back for a few days. Let’s not take any chances.”
I felt as if someone else were getting in the taxi, handing money to the driver, unbuckling a car seat, walking into the office. I was tapped out on fear, momentarily numb and ominously calm. Andrew had contacted experts on his own who’d told him that anthrax wasn’t even a footnote in the medical books. Sophie’s pediatrician, Karen Lancry, was intelligent and compassionate. “Don’t worry, this is just a precaution,” she said as she donned gloves. But her eyes gave her away. After examining the rash, she’d said, “She looks just fine. But under the circumstances I think we should send her to a specialist. Just in case.”
More gloves, masks, poking and prodding. More tests and “We’ll wait for the results.”
Andrew and I were sick of waiting for answers. What’s more, we knew one person who might be able to help. And that person was married to my best friend.
“Gin?” As I rushed headlong into a breathless explanation, she stopped me.
“Sara, Nad’s actually treated someone with anthrax.”
“What? A person? I thought that in Africa just elephants got it!”
“It’s rare, but sometimes people pick it up, and it happened once here in the park.”
“He probably knows more about it than anyone in the U.S.”
“Hang on, I’ll get him.”
Just hearing Nad’s deep voice made me feel better. I told him about Sophie’s symptoms. The cough. The rash.
He listened patiently. Then asked one question.
“You say rash. Is there any one spot?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“It would be large. It might look almost black.”
“No.”
He paused. Then, through the swampy overseas line, his voice came through with strength and clarity. “Look, what you’re describing, it’s not anthrax.”
“You’re sure?”
“Ya. One hundred percent, Sara. One hundred percent.”
My face telegraphed the news to Andrew across the room and his shoulders sagged with relief.
WITHIN DAYS THE anthrax threat had spread, striking ABC, CBS, the New York Post, New York Governor George Pataki’s office, Capitol Hill, the White House mailroom, with postal workers especially vulnerable. Striking closest to home for us—the baby of an ABC World News Tonight producer, just a month older than Sophie, contracted cutaneous anthrax, probably after coming in contact with spoors while crawling on the carpet in the newsroom. Thankfully, the baby recovered, as did our NBC colleague Erin. In all, twenty-two people would be infected by anthrax, and five would die, when the attacks—which began one week after 9/11—ended as inexplicably as they’d begun.
On the day that all of us tested at NBC got the welcome “all clear,” Andrew brought home a rainbow bouquet and pulled out the camera. We took a picture with our beaming, contented daughter, oblivious to the drama that had swirled around her, and sent it by computer to family and friends around the world. He captioned it “Safe Soph.”
IN THE MORNINGS that followed I’d say good-bye to Sophie and walk to work. I needed the exercise. But I also couldn’t stand to take the subway because going underground meant losing contact, and the world could seesaw in an instant. In the evenings I tried not to cry when Sophie pushed the bottle away and attempted to nurse. She was perfectly healthy. She’d make the transition.
But I was less certain of my own transition. I was struggling, unwilling to admit how anxious and uncertain I felt. And what would it be like when my current assignment of handling special reports ended and I was back on the road, back to the life of a full-time correspondent? It was too much to contemplate.
A FEW DAYS later Ginger called. “Are you ready for this? Suddenly National Geographic wants our anthrax film.”
“Congratulations, Gin. I’m so glad to hear you’ve got another project, even if I can’t stand the word anthrax. But, anyway, it’s certainly topical.”
“Exactly. Actually, they want to broaden the story, talk about weaponized anthrax as well as anthrax in the wild.”
“That makes sense.”
“I agree. But I’m worried about how they want to do it.”
“What do you mean?”
She paused. “Because they want to include your story.”
“Us? You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. They want to talk about what happened to you and Andrew with Sophie.”
Now it was my turn to pause. And then the irony hit me. “You know, Ginger, our lives are pretty strange. I do a story on you for Dateline. Now you’re going to do one on me. And for National Geographic, for crying out loud.”
“Sara, in all seriousness, I just don’t want to be a vulture, swooping in on—”
“You could never be a vulture,” I interrupted. “And remember, we’re fine. I’m glad they want to do your film. Look, as long as Andrew and NBC say yes, I’m fine. Besides, you’ll get to meet Sophie, and I’ll get to see Kimber!”
“Finally!” She laughed, and I laughed, too.
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER Ginger was standing in front of me, waving a finished copy of the film. “Want to see yourself on TV?”
“I’m not sure. I wasn’t crazy about being interviewed instead of asking the questions.”
“I know what you mean. But remember, you’ll also be watching Miss Soph’s television debut. And I’ll get a chance to play with your girl,” she continued, holding out her arms for Sophie, who cheerfully abandoned ship.
“What a bright spark she is.” Ginger smiled.
“I always wonder what she’s thinking. I can’t wait to get down to Virginia to get my hands on Kimber. What a love he is, and so bright.”
Ginger grinned. “Hybrid vigor. Just ask Nad.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Gin settled back on the sofa with Sophie squirming playfully on her lap. “I made the mistake of telling my husband how gorgeous and smart Kimber was. You know, just normal mom bragging. Anyway, he says, ‘Well, we’re from two different continents, completely different genetic stock. That’s what’s called hybrid vigor.’”
“God love your husband. The mystery and romance of children, hmm?”
“That’s what you get when you marry a scientist, I suppose. They keep you thinking.”
“Speaking of thinking…” I paused. “These attacks, everything…”
Gin nodded, encouraging me.
“Gin, I never imagined I’d feel this way, but working full-time isn’t working out for me right now. It just doesn’t fit. I love Dateline and Today and Specials, but I feel like I never see Sophie.”
Gin smiled in understanding. “For me it’s different. I’m here for a couple of months, working flat out, but then we’re back in the bush and I have loads of time with Kimber, and I love that, too.”
“Exactly! That’s what I want.”
“But will they let you? Do people go part-time at the network?”
“Not a lot. But a couple of correspondents at Dateline did a job share, so maybe there’s a precedent. Anyway, I just know that I have to try.”
Ginger paused. “Sara, you know as well as I do that tailoring life means making sacrifices, especially when you have a child. I know mine have been worth it. I bet you’ll find the same.”
“I hope so. I just know my stomach hurts when I think about scaling back. But it hurts more when I try not to.”
“Then that’s your answer.”
But as I turned out the lights that night and went to bed, I wondered. Knowing that I needed to make a change didn’t mean knowing what would happen when I did. Could I handle the aftershocks? Would I disappear? Who was I without the tagline NBC News? I’d gone from cub local reporter to married local anchor to divorced network correspondent to married correspondent to working mom. Evolutions personal and professional. Maybe as a woman, change just went with the territory. But if my dilemma was nothing new, it was still a dilemma. Ginger had re-created her life post-motherhood. Could I?