Patrick Day tells Roisin Ingle about the the fiancée he lost on 9/11
The pain in the voice of Patrick Day comes crackling down the line from New York on the eve of the first anniversary of the tragedy at the World Trade Centre.
"No I don't mind you calling," says the 38-year-old. "I like to talk about my Anne. It makes me feel closer to her." Then the tears come. For a minute he can't stop them. "I'm so sorry," he says.
Anne Marie McHugh, aged 35 when she died during the terrorist attacks, was Patrick's fiancée. Brought up in Tuam, Co Galway, Anne moved to New York when she was 18.
She was a stockbroker who returned home to Ireland, to parents Pádraig and Margaret, a few times each year. She had long red hair and clear blue eyes. The first time he saw her, Patrick Day, born on March 17th of Irish-American stock in south Dakota, knew this was the woman he wanted to marry.
"I remember kissing her cheek and getting that exact feeling," he says. "She was just perfect for me and I was perfect for her. We were honest with each other, we were good to each other." In the days after the attacks, when Patrick wandered alone around their neighbourhood in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, acquaintances would stop and ask: "Where's your Annie?"
"It affected everyone who had met her," says Patrick. "She was that type of person, she made you feel warm in her company. My family loved her."
Their last weekend together was eventful. On the Friday, Anne had bought tickets for Patrick to see the Yankees. "The tickets were so good I remember kissing her and saying this is baseball paradise," he says.
On the Saturday they stayed in their apartment, playing games on the Playstation and watching science fiction programmes on TV. Sunday was the All-Ireland final. "Galway lost - but it was a great day anyway," says Patrick. On the Monday, Patrick met up with his friend Tomas and they planned a small bachelor party for that night. Anne and Patrick were due to get married in Florence the following November. They wanted children as soon as they got married.
"We had picked the names, John Patrick for the first boy, Katie for the first girl. We were both so excited," he says.
Anne wasn't feeling well on Monday night so she stayed at home while Patrick and Tomas went to watch the first game of the football season. It was rained out and they went for a drink instead. When they got home, Anne was still awake.
"We talked for a couple of hours. I wasn't feeling too good because of all the hotdogs I'd eaten and neither of us could sleep," he says. Eventually they did sleep and Patrick says he woke a few times in the night to find Anne's hand in his. "We always cuddled up together but it was unusual for us to be holding hands. I thought a lot about that afterwards," he says.
The alarm didn't go off that morning. Patrick remembers thinking that maybe Anne would skip work that day, they'd go out for lunch, she could finish writing the wedding invitations. But Anne got up, took a shower, and Patrick walked her to the door.
"I can see her by the elevator, laughing at me, saying be a good boy now and call me when you get to work," says Patrick. He walked to the New York Public Library where he works designing museum exhibits. He called her in her office on the 89th floor as soon as he arrived. They chatted for around half-an-hour until Anne said: "Something's hit the building, I gotta go."
Anne had been in the World Trade Centre when the bomb went off in 1993. Then, she had walked down 107 flights of stairs to safety. This time, she didn't come home. Patrick went home though. "I fully expected to see her walking down the street covered in dust, I wouldn't eat because I wanted to wait for her," he says.
He works seven days a week now, bartending when he is not at the library. "I just want to keep busy."
Anne's body has never been recovered. "I think about Anne every day, I cry because I miss her. But I am so glad for what we had together. But so angry too."
Today, Patrick will attend a memorial service at Ground Zero. Then there will be dinner in memory of Anne and the rest of the staff at Euro Broker who lost their lives. Later, Patrick and his friends will go to their local bar "to drink a few toasts to Anne".
Tomorrow, he will travel "back home" to Ireland to be with Anne's family. "They are my family too now," he says.
"At least one thing I know is that she never spent one day without knowing I loved her. Nothing was ever left unsaid or undemonstrated. That is one comfort I have."