Saved, but not restored. Genelle's life hasn't returned to anything approaching normality. She hasn't resumed her duties at the Port Authority—and she won't, she says. She wants to become a social worker or pursue some other helping vocation. Returning to the Port Authority would remind her too much of everything that happened, everyone who was lost. Rosa Gonzalez and Susan Miszkowicz are dead. So are all the others in the group who took the stairs with her—except Pasquale Buzzelli. He was knocked unconscious in the collapse and awoke hours later stranded atop a 15-ft.-high mass of twisted metal and concrete. He was rescued around 3 p.m.; he had suffered a fractured bone in his foot and other injuries. As for Genelle, she has two foot-long scars, one on each side of her right calf, which doctors virtually rebuilt in four surgeries.

Though she has recovered from her leg and other injuries, Genelle spends most of her days at the Cypress Hills apartment, where she reads the Bible and watches the big-screen TV. She, Roger and Roger's son Kadeem live mostly on the salary Roger makes as a pressman for a direct-mail firm. Genelle has received some financial aid—rent from the Red Cross, lost wages from Safe Horizon, the victim-assistance group—but she doesn't plan to go for big bucks with a lawsuit. She met with a lawyer, but in the end she decided to apply for the victims' compensation fund. "I'm a Christian now," she explains. "I don't think it's really anybody's fault."

She also has had enough legal worries this year. Having violated the terms of her visa by staying beyond 2000 and getting a job, she could technically be deported. But ironically, because she was working illegally at the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, she is protected from deportation. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has said it will not target illegals who were victims of the attacks. Genelle still must legalize her residency so she can travel freely—she and Roger had to postpone a trip to Trinidad and an expenses-paid honeymoon to the U.S. Virgin Islands—but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's office is on the case.

Other matters loom larger. To an outsider who comes over to her place on a sunny day and watches her flip channels, Genelle seems listless, even depressed. She cancels plans often, saying she is tired or busy. Genelle explains that her new faith has freed her of earthly concerns that used to preoccupy her. "There's a million changes in me," she says. "I used to be this fun person, laughing, going out. Now I spend most of my time talking about the Bible, giving the glory to God. Before, I worried so much—about money, about looking good. Now I'm walking around with a limp, and I have these scars. And I don't worry about that; it's not important."

Yet Genelle may be ignoring not just her scars but the wounds beneath. She spent a month in Bellevue Hospital Center after Sept. 11, and during her stay, doctors discovered signs of cervical cancer and a heart condition. What would have overwhelmed an ordinary patient barely fazed her. "I let the Lord lead me," she says. "He's my doctor. I saw the cardio doctor recently, and he was like, 'Oh, you have to take your medication [Atenol, to lower blood pressure]. You really must promise me you'll take it.' I was smiling. He said, 'You think of this as a joke?' I said, 'No, but I've been off it for, like, four months.' I told him the Lord knows what he's doing."

It would be presumptuous to tell someone touched by a miracle that she shouldn't count on God again. (And indeed, a recent biopsy showed no cervical cancer.) But Genelle may be using her faith as a curtain, one she can draw across a roomful of unfinished business. "I think she hasn't dealt with the tragedy, the trauma she went through," says her cousin Gail. "She wants to block it out."

Gail and her sister Lauren have been worried about Genelle for several months. They believe that after Sept. 11, Genelle rushed to change her relationships with Jesus and with Roger before she had fully healed inside. They don't know if she really wants to belong to a conservative evangelical church. And even though Gail was maid of honor and Lauren was a bridesmaid at Genelle's wedding, the cousins think that Roger can be too controlling of Genelle—and that she isn't assertive enough.

On top of everything else, reporters keep calling and reminding Genelle that her very existence is newsworthy. Time-consuming TV appearances—she has done Oprah, British TV and CNN—have distracted her, the cousins say. "People need to see the real Judy, not 'Genelle,' and the media need to stop portraying her as this amazing, perfect survivor," says Gail. "What she needs is time for peace and reflection."

Instead, Genelle's life has taken on a staged quality. For months this year, she worked with Bride's to plan her July 13 wedding ceremony—even though she and Roger had married on Nov. 7. (They went to City Hall to wed just before Genelle was baptized at the Brooklyn Tabernacle; she didn't want to be baptized while she was still a fornicator.) Gail and Lauren say Genelle allowed herself to be pushed around by the media planners of the wedding, which was largely denuded of Trinidadian culture. There was a jazz trumpeter instead of calypso, grilled snapper instead of curries and a whole army of P.R. people to flack all the donated wares. "That was just an example of how people are using her, using her story," says Gail. "And sometimes she lets it happen."

For her part, Genelle says her wedding was "beautiful" and "awesome." Roger calls it "scripted" but says he and his wife just laughed about all the orders they got from CBS and Bride's. ("There was no intention to say it's got to be this or that kind of wedding," says Peter Hunsinger, president of the Condé Nast Bridal Group, which publishes Bride's. "We worked with Genelle and Roger every step.") The couple say they love each other deeply and that any problems they had before 9/11 weren't serious. As for any internal injuries, Genelle, who isn't regularly seeing a therapist, says, "God is my psychiatrist"—that her faith can heal anything.

Her pastor emphasized that point in a sermon that partly focused on Genelle. Pastor Jim Cymbala told the congregation that in contrast to "the tremendous failure rate of psychiatry and psychologists, all things are possible for those who believe in Christ." A short time later, the minister called Genelle and Roger to the stage and said, "We say that God has a special plan for all of us. But if there's anyone he has a plan for, it is this beautiful child of Christ." A few days before, he had told Genelle in private that she is "the poster child for [the idea that] God has a purpose for your life."

But does Genelle know her own purpose? Is she ready to be a poster child? It may be paralyzing to be told that God has something huge in store for you. "She feels like she just can't make any wrong moves," says Gail through tears. Even a friend of Genelle's who shares her faith has some concerns about her. Angella Whyte, who has been helping Genelle study the Bible, says Genelle should be taking her heart medication, not leaving her condition up to God. "Sometimes the way the Lord wants you to heal is by taking your medication," says Angella, a nurse. Psychologically, however, she says, "Genelle has some avoidance things, but she is not depressed."

Pasquale Buzzelli sometimes wonders why he was saved. He imagines the reason has something to do with his daughter Hope, who was born Nov. 18. (His wife Louise has launched the Song for Hope Foundation to benefit women who were pregnant when they lost their husbands on Sept. 11.) "You almost feel like you have to do something, but you're not sure," he says. The indeterminacy is frustrating and painful for him, but not—at least outwardly—for Genelle. "I think sometimes: 'Why did I wait on Rosa?'" she says. "I guess the whole thing happened for a reason. It was just their time to go. God calls, and you have to answer. Some of them weren't prepared for him, and that gets to me. I know Rosa, I know she wasn't ready to go. It was just the life she was living—it wasn't a life of God."

This sounds judgmental, but Genelle doesn't mean it that way; she says that only God knows his plan for Rosa's soul. And Genelle knows that if she had died that day, she would not have been ready to meet her maker. But she is frustrated when people say she merely got lucky and those who died were unlucky. "This is not about luck," she says. "This is about God having a plan. And he will reveal it to me one day. I think God will give me a sign."

At moments like this, Genelle seems steeled by God's presence. At other times, she seems more wobbly, not as if she doubts her faith but as if she doubts everything else—her place in this world most of all. A few weeks ago, she watched on the news as a plane fighting forest fires crashed in a spectacular fireball. One expected some reaction, but her eyes were distant. She said something vague about the world coming to an end, a thought that didn't seem to trouble her much. God calls, and you have to answer.

It will take far longer than one year of reflection about Sept. 11 for all of her discordances to clarify. But many people who meet Genelle sense only peace. "My main impression of her is really just how calm she is," says Amsale Aberra, the wedding-gown designer, who got to know Genelle while working with her on a dress for the televised ceremony. "You would never guess what she had been through." And for now, that seems to be just what Genelle Guzman-McMillan wants. The rest of it—the big answers to why she is here—may always lie hidden between her and God.