(This story originally published in the Detroit Free Press on Nov. 18, 2001.)
"Margaret?!" said the voice on the other end of the phone, sounding puzzled.
"No … this is Jean …" Jean Neal of Detroit steadies herself for the question she knows is coming. It's the same question that has resonated in her mind since Sept. 11.
"Where is Margaret?"
Jean is gentle with the voice on the phone. It is a friend of her youngest sister, Margaret Mattic.
The friend, calling from New York, had called Margaret's Brooklyn apartment, but the recording answering the phone gave a number with a 313 area code. The woman figured Margaret moved back home to Detroit.
Jean must break the news to the woman on the phone, just as she has done over and over again in the weeks since
terrorists attacked the United States.
Margaret Mattic, 51, worked in the offices of General Telecom on the 83rd floor in the north tower of the World Trade Center. She was there when the building was hit by a hijacked commercial airplane.
Margaret was in that building when it collapsed, Jean tells the woman on the phone.
So was my fiance, the woman replies.
Since that Tuesday when thousands were killed in New York, Washington, DC, and a field in Pennsylvania, news headlines have darted off in twisted directions. The crash of an American Airlines jet into a Queens neighborhood. Anthrax deaths and infection. Complex military action in Afghanistan. FBI high alerts.
As millions struggle to keep a lid on bubbling panic, the family of Margaret Mattic must cope with the challenge of laying a soul to rest.
For the people who loved the Detroit native and aspiring actress -- her mother, Katie Mattic, and sisters Jean Neal, Frances Douglas, Vivian Mattic and Virgie Binford -- that means tying up the loose ends of Margaret's life.
There is work to do. Forms to fill out. An apartment to clear out. Mail to collect. A safety deposit box to empty. A death certificate to wait on. A memorial service to plan. And questions to answer.
At about 8:45 a.m., on Sept. 11, a plane slices through the north tower of the World Trade Center.
From the building, Margaret Mattic calls her friend Bobby Marsh, a retired biomedical engineer who lives in Brooklyn.
"We didn't talk long because she called from a cell phone," Bobby says. "She didn't have a cell phone. She must have borrowed it from someone.
"She was frightened. She called to tell me that she was trapped in the building. And that there was a lot of confusion, and that she was waiting for instruction."
A love of theater had pulled Margaret from Detroit to New York, first for a time in the late '70s and once again 10 years ago. As with many aspiring actors and playwrights, she worked a non-theater job to pay the bills.
Jean, Margaret's sister and a mother of two grown sons, is watching television at her Detroit home. She is getting ready for a job fair. On the TV screen, Jean sees smoke coming from the World Trade Center.
Is that where Margaret works?, she wonders. Margaret used to work in New Jersey, but Jean recalls her saying something about the World Trade Center.
Jean calls her sister Frances Douglas at the Detroit Edison Credit Union in Livonia. Frances, a mother of four, is in a training session.
"A plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center. I think Margaret works there. I can't call Mama," Jean says to Frances' voice mail.
Bobby Marsh calls Margaret's mother, Katie Mattic, in Detroit.
"I got a call from Margaret," he says. "She is trapped at the World Trade."
Katie Mattic is caught off balance; she doesn't say much.
"… I will be in touch," Bobby says before ending the call.
Shortly after hanging up with Bobby, Katie Mattic gets a call from Jean. Confirming her worst fear, the 79-year-old mother tells her daughter what Margaret's friend said.
A little after 9 a.m., a second plane crashes into the south tower. The building falls at 9:50 a.m.
Jean calls Bobby in Brooklyn.
"Was Margaret in that building?" Jean asks.
No, Bobby answers.
Jean jumps into her car, and heads from her west side home to her mother's house on the east side of the city. As she turns off of the Lodge Freeway and onto Interstate 94, the voice on the radio says the north tower has collapsed.
Jean screams. She screams until she reaches her mother's house.
Where is Margaret?
In the days directly after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Mattics learn that all 13 General Telecom employees who were in the building are missing.
Margaret's family holds fast to hope.
Maybe Margaret was able to get out of the building. Maybe she is injured and being treated in a hospital somewhere. Maybe she's wandering around Manhattan, disoriented. Maybe there are air pockets in the rubble where survivors will be found.
Days pass.
Nothing.
The family grows increasingly anxious with each passing hour.
"Mother told us … She told us to bring Margaret home, bring her stuff home," says Vivian, who lives with Katie Mattic. "She said if she was hurt, bring her home and we would get her well."
Before day breaks the Monday after the attacks, Jean and Vivian, are in a packed minivan bound for Brooklyn. They are joined by a cousin, Commodore Price, and Margaret's best Detroit girlfriend, Peggy Robinson. Margaret and Peggy met at Albert L. Stephens Elementary School.
Frances remains in Detroit. "Someone has to stay with Mama," she says.
In New York, sorrow lurks in unforeseen places. It idles in the very tasks Jean, Vivian, Commodore and Peggy must undertake. "To think about how she must have suffered … ," Jean says.
"To think that people were jumping out of windows and others burned to death, what a choice to have to make.
"It's just horrible. We are praying that God will have something for us that is tangible."
Margaret's loved ones knew the situation was bad before they left Detroit, but nothing could have prepared them for New York and the full force of the sucker punch that hatred had delivered.
Bringing Margaret home, under these circumstances with no warning and no body, is a strange process with demands that press down hard on the soul. This will be a long week, in which fond memories of Margaret Mattic struggle to hold ground against the horror that has rendered her missing.
At the Pier 94 Family Assistance Center, Margaret is already listed as missing. The week of the attacks, friends had registered her.
The next step for the Mattic family is to bring DNA samples to the center, which is run by the city. The center is the place for the family members and friends of missing people to provide as much information as possible about their loved ones.
"You don't believe that this is it, the process of identifying someone with DNA," Vivian says. "You are hoping that you will still be able to find some remnant of Margaret somewhere."
The center is meant to be soothing. Fresh flowers sit atop the tables. Grief counselors walk the room looking for people who need to talk. Comfort food is served. Meat loaf. Mashed potatoes. Pasta. Chicken.
Regardless of the setup, this is an abysmal chore.
Jean is next in line. The woman at the table asks her for Margaret's identification number. Jean doesn't know the number. The woman thumbs through a long list.
"It's P1593," the woman says.
"To think … my sister has been reduced to a number."
Jean gives the woman her sister's toothbrush, hairbrush and comb. Both Jean and Vivian, through swab tests, give samples of their DNA.
In Detroit, in happier times, they were known as the "Mattic girls." And Margaret was the baby.
Virgie Binford is the oldest daughter of Jessie Mattic Jr.; she grew up in Mississippi and now lives in Virginia. After moving to Detroit, Jessie Mattic Jr. married Katie Price in 1944. They had four daughters with just five years separating them.
First came Jean Neal, 56. Then Frances Douglas, 55. Vivian Mattic, 53, followed Frances. Margaret was born last; she would have turned 52 on Nov. 8.
"It was always the four of us -- together," Jean says.
"I can remember, as many siblings will do, we would get into it with each other. Sometimes it would be the two older ones against the two younger ones. Sometimes it would be Margaret and me against the middle two."
Jessie Mattic, who died in 1997, and his wife were strict yet fair parents who instilled a love of family in their children. Theirs was a Christian household. The Mattic girls knew that no matter how hard they played or partied on Saturday, they had better be ready for church come Sunday.
"Even if we were sitting there half asleep," Jean recalls.
During this week in New York, the Mattic family turns to the church. The four attend an evening revival service at Emmanuel Baptist Church in the Clinton Hills section of Brooklyn.
Margaret joined this congregation of 2,200 about five years ago. She sang first alto in the Total Praise choir. Several fellow choir members consider attending a memorial service for Margaret in Detroit, when one is planned.
"I knew instantly when I walked in why Margaret was a member," Peggy says.
Emmanuel Baptist is a warm place. During the revival, Reverend Anthony Trufant introduces the Detroiters to the congregation. He tells them that the church is praying for them, and members are ready to help.
Church members do what they can. Some cook meals and drop them at Margaret's apartment. Others provide the family with tips on what needs to be done.
William E. Frazier Jr., a church member and seminary student, volunteers to guide the family through the dizzying city, and shepherd them along the complex legal road they must traverse.
"It was put on my heart to help," says Frazier, a financial consultant who only knew Margaret as a member of the church choir. "The pastor told the family that they would have people to help them, and that is the bottom line.
There was a need.
"It is my contribution to the family and to the city."
At the Brooklyn apartment, Vivian and Peggy do most of the packing. It is weird being in Margaret's space without Margaret, Vivian says. "She was a private person."
In the midst of Margaret's things Vivian finds solace. She flips through her sister's scrapbook. Folds her clothes. Stacks her shoes. She runs her fingers over the stuff of Margaret's life.
"Usually Margaret would come home a couple of times during the year," says Vivian, who last saw her sister when she returned home for a family picnic in July.
When Margaret visited Detroit during the summers and winter holidays, Vivian would often drive her sister around the city. "She dreaded driving," says Vivian, who drives an 18-wheeler for a living.
"Her sense of direction was terrible, she was always getting lost. So I would drive. We would do a little ripping and running to her buddies' houses, and shop for Christmas gifts and things like that."
While at the apartment, Peggy keeps an eye on the door. Her mind seeks refuge in an increasingly abstract thought. Maybe Margaret will just come home?
"It feels like maybe you could wake up and all of these days and nights are dreams," Peggy says.
"Even after we knew that she was missing, I just called her phone to hear her voice on the voice mail. I hope I never have to go through something like this again. It would be nice if nobody has to go through this."
Later in the week, the Mattics return to Pier 94 to submit Margaret's dental records. Jean posts a photograph of her sister; Margaret's warm brown face smiles down from the outside of the building. The photo is surrounded by too many others.
Jean weeps.
A good deal of the business has been handled by the end of the week. With the help of William Frazier, Margaret's family has filled out, faxed, gathered or delivered much of the vital paperwork.
The affidavit from Margaret's mother has been submitted and so has the affidavit from the last person who spoke with her. The paperwork for the letters of administration, which will allow Jean to act on her sister's behalf, has also been taken care of.
The voice mail at the Brooklyn apartment is jammed with calls. After days of trying, Jean gets the code from the phone company.
She listens to the messages.
Friends are looking for Margaret. Some call over and over again. They leave messages, each one more frantic than the last. One woman just sobs into the phone.
Jean doesn't know who half of the messages are from. It's understandable, she says. Friends don't usually leave last names and callback numbers.
By Friday, the Brooklyn apartment is cleared. Margaret's things are put on a truck bound for Detroit.
Before leaving the East Coast, Jean, Vivian, Commodore and Peggy visit Brenda Pressley at her home in South Orange New Jersey. Brenda and Margaret met in the late '70s, and had been friends since.
"We met at the Markle Evangeline Residence for Young Women on West 13th Street," says Brenda, a 45-year-old South Carolina native.
"It was a wonderful place for single women to reside. We each had our private rooms, maid service. It was for people who were starting their careers in New York. That is what I was doing, and what she was doing."
Brenda and Margaret shared a love of performing. "That is what she came to New York for," says Brenda, a cast member of the original Broadway production of "Dream Girls."
Margaret started her stage career while attending Stephens Elementary in Detroit. In her early years, she received starring roles as Snow White and Gretel, of "Hansel and Gretel". She continued performing at Cass Technical High School and Wayne State University, where she graduated with a degree in liberal arts in 1973.
"She had a fierce love of theater," Brenda says. "And she loved New York. She made a home away from home in New York."
The Mattics give Brenda a plant that once lived in Margaret's apartment. Jean, Vivian, Peggy and Commodore stay the night. They laugh, cry and remember.
When Brenda married Douglas Purviance in 1992, Margaret read a passage from the Book of Ruth at the wedding. On this evening, someone says it might be nice to see the wedding video. But the evening slips away.
It is probably for the best, Brenda tells herself. Seeing Margaret now would be a little too painful.
"I want my friend back," she says. "I want to hear that sweet voice. I just want my friend back."
Brenda can't get that question out of her head.
Where is Margaret?
Katie Mattic woke one morning with a dream lying heavy on her heart. It was at least a week before the terrorist attacks.
In her sleep, Katie Mattic saw the chimney of her house fall. The dream was so vivid, so clear, that she woke, went outside, and looked up at the chimney of the Detroit home where she and her husband raised four daughters.
Her glance revealed a large crack in the chimney.
In the African-American tradition, a matriarch's dreams are significant. Warnings and life lessons are often said to be revealed in those dreams. Katie Mattic's dream and the crack in the chimney, her daughters say, foreshadowed the fracture that was to come.
There is a crack in the Mattic household.
The thought of Margaret trapped in the skyscraper, swallowed up by flames and heat, is an overwhelming load for a mother to carry. "That is the hardest thing for me," Katie Mattic says, fighting tears and fury. "What would someone do if they are in the position when they can't help themself?
"It happened to my child."
The world has little relief to offer the mother of Margaret Mattic, a petite women whose courage belies her frame. For more than two months she has grappled with the reality of the day a man called and said her daughter was trapped in the north tower of the World Trade Center.
"The terrorists, that is who did this, what did they learn in their lifetime? How could they think to do a thing like that?" she asks.
"The devil is busy."
Katie Mattic has kept her emotions tightly wrapped since Sept. 11. Nearly two months after the tragedy, she releases. Her sobs reveal the hurt. Her words, as if plucked from a Sunday morning sermon, speak to the source of her strength.
"When things get too hard for you, you don't know nothing to do but pray and call on the Lord. That is what got me this far. If you don't know what to do, do what you can do.
"Know the Lord," she says, "if you don't know anyone else."
The body of Margaret Mattic has not been found. The things from her apartment are now tucked away in boxes in the basement. There is no way to pack away the suffering.
A memorial service will not take place until the death certificate arrives, Katie Mattic has told her daughters. It is as if some semblance of closure will come when someone officially tells Katie Mattic that Margaret is dead.
Still, there is more work to do. Someone must go back to New York and empty Margaret's safety deposit box. Someone must keep up with the financial aid that is available for families of the victims. Someone must sort through Margaret's things.
The death certificate for Margaret Mattic arrives Nov. 1. Katie Mattic is home alone when it comes. There are 10 copies. The manner of death is listed as homicide.
"We are trying to be strong," Jean says. "We will get through."
Margaret's birthday is one of the hard days. That day at work, Jean uses a date stamp. She stamps Nov. 8, again and again.
The life of Margaret Mattic will be celebrated Saturday at 11 a.m. at New Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church at 2201 Elmhurst St. in Detroit. Seventeen members of the Total Praise choir will travel from Brooklyn to Detroit by van, and perform at the service.
Where is Margaret?
The people who love her say she is forever in their hearts.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Bringing Margaret home: Detroit family's search for daughter after 9/11
