LORRAINE ANTIGUA: In the Garden,
Under the Sea
The
plan, Brian Wilkes said with a gentle laugh, was that he
and Lorraine Antigua would marry at a drive-through
chapel, maybe in Las Vegas, maybe this fall, while on a
Harley-Davidson. "She said she would buy the Harley," he
said.
Mr. Wilkes met Ms. Antigua, 32, at a going-away party
two years ago, on the cusp of a move to North Carolina.
They nurtured a long-distance relationship, until he
decided to return north to marry Ms. Antigua.
Ms. Antigua loved working in the securities lending
arm at Cantor Fitzgerald so much that she refused other
job offers. At 8:50 a.m. on Sept. 11, she left a message
for Mr. Wilkes on his mobile phone, saying a plane had
rammed her building but she was O.K. He never managed to
reach her.
They lived together in a house Ms. Antigua had bought
in Middletown, N.J., where they had planned to make a new
family with her two children from a previous marriage.
They filled the garden with azaleas and sunflowers. To
hear Mr. Wilkes tell it, Ms. Antigua was all good things
-- an avid reader, a scuba diver and a dear friend.
"She's awesome," he said, slipping from habit into the
present tense. "She ruined me for other women."
.
