The Bartlett Building was an old brick office building, probably erected in the 1920s. The lobby was standard corporate issue: ugly modern furniture, blasé abstract paintings on the walls, professional and pleasant receptionist. The hallway leading to Doug Bartlett’s office still had the original bare oak trim and well-maintained plaster walls; his office door old-fashioned, glass-windowed with a transom.
     The monastic sparseness of the office itself came as a surprise to Will. He had expected some of the trappings of wealth and influence, perhaps a rare painting or piece of pottery placed inconspicuously for the discerning eye. Not even a Certificate of Appreciation. Just bare walls, a half-empty bookcase, a few filing cabinets, an old table with three chairs, a large oak desk, chipped and scratched. On the bookshelves were a few dozen books, a cheap stereo, some CDs, and a lone photograph of two young marines. Will thought he recognized one of the soldiers as Malcolm Crage.
     Doug Bartlett looked up from his desk and smiled. “Hi, Will. Let me finish up on this paperwork. I’ll only be a second.”
     Will returned the smile, and took the opportunity to browse the bookshelf. It contained the Guide to Oregon Foundations and some other titles dealing with nonprofit management, adolescent boys, and troubled teens; several books analyzing the Vietnam War; The Dhammapada; Thich Nhat Hanh’s Being Peace; The Tibetan Book of the Dead; several classical CDs. An interesting collection, Will thought.
     “There.” Bartlett set his pen down with finality next to a neat stack of file folders. He stood and offered Will a cup of coffee.
     “Black,” said Will, then “Were you and Crage in the service together?”
     “No. That’s my brother, Wes. He served with Connie in Nam.”
     Will remembered the memorial stone at the funeral. Wesley Bartlett had died in Vietnam. Nineteen sixty-six.
     Doug handed Will his coffee and invited him to sit down at the table.
     “You know Crage pretty well, then.” Will said.
     “We’re close. Connie’s been like a brother to me.”
     “He seems like kind of a volatile guy–from the way he reacted at that City Council hearing.”
     “Connie’s been to hell and back. Something like that sticks with you all your life. But he’s a good man.”
     “I see you have quite an interest in Vietnam.”
     “Yeah, I’ve read a little. When Wesley died…I guess I needed to know what it was all about.”
     “It must have been tough on you as a teenager to have your brother die like that.”
     Bartlett didn’t respond, but his eyes, distant and glazed, prompted Will to change the subject.
     “So you like Midori?” Will gestured toward Doug’s compact discs. “Her Carnegie Hall recording is one of my favorites.”
     “Yes. Her playing is exquisite. Do you know she is performing with the Oregon Symphony tomorrow evening? Perhaps you would like to join me? I have extra seats. If you’re free, or…” Doug seemed to lose his footing.
     Will hesitated. The initial thought of going out for an evening without Emmy left him more than a little cold.
     “Maybe it’s too soon,” Doug said. “I really shouldn’t have asked…I thought perhaps you might use a diversion to occupy your mind.…”
     Will thought about that. He really dreaded the evenings alone in his apartment, thinking about her. Thinking about life without her. Recriminating himself for all his failings. He could grieve silently in public, couldn’t he? And he could get to know Doug Bartlett.
     “No. I think maybe I’d like that,” he replied.
     “Fine. I’ll meet you there at 7:45 then.”
     Will downed his cup of coffee and the two of them rose together.
     “One more thing before I let you get back to work,” said Will. “What was it you had planned to tell Emmy?”
     Bartlett turned away and looked out the window.
     “I don’t understand.”
     “Emmy left a message on my machine. She said you had some good news for her.”
     “Oh, that. Yes, I was going to tell her that I had decided to help build that youth shelter she was working so hard for…I still want to do that…in her honor.”
     “So, you never saw her that evening?”
     “No. I never had a chance to tell her.”
     “Did you know she was pregnant?”
     Bartlett hesitated again. “Yes. She told me at our last Wednesday meeting. I couldn’t get her to have a drink with me. She said she just wanted tea. That was unusual. We had a kind of ritual. I’d suggest some liqueur or wine that she had never tasted and she would try it. Not much of a ritual. More a routine. But that night all she wanted was tea. Finally, she told me about the pregnancy and said she wanted some advice. She wasn’t sure how you would take it.”
     “Yes, I see…” There was an aching in Will’s head. It unnerved him that she had a routine with someone else even if Doug was her cousin. And worse that she could confide in him about something so intimate. Who else knew, besides Doug and Lucy? Who else had Emmy found worthy to share her secret with? Not me, Will thought, a wild bitterness rose in his chest. Will realized that Doug was watching him waiting. He cleared his throat, extending a hand to Doug. “Thanks, Doug. I’ll let you get on with your day.”
     Bartlett shook his hand. “It’s my pleasure, Will. See you tomorrow evening.”
     “Tomorrow evening.” I’ll go to the symphony, Will thought, but I don’t think I’m going to get over this.

     Portland, Oregon, at the turn of the 21st Century, is a city, which, on the surface, has lost its social pretensions. For an evening at the symphony, a young person is as likely to arrive in blue jeans and a nose ring, as in formal attire. The casual, anything goes attitude can be disconcerting to Easterners who are used to a strict dress code at highbrow events. But they needn’t feel out of place, Will thought. Under the democratic surface lay as much snobbery and classism as you might find in Boston or New York.
     The young man in leather and spiked, green hair who held the door for him was probably an art student from a well-to-do family, certainly not one of Emmy’s urchins. The conversation inside seemed as pretentious as the dialogue of a Woody Allen movie, or a faculty cocktail party. As Will saw it, there are two kinds of people who frequent these events: those who come to appreciate the music, and those who come to be seen and appreciated for their good taste. The latter seemed to predominate tonight. He was surrounded by carefully coifed hair, and rows of perfect teeth. A nearly endless line of tanned faces rolling through the lobby, were perched cheerfully above the flawless drapery of tailored clothes. As his eyes adjusted to the refined air, Will could also see the studied indifference of ripped jeans, tongue studs, a few faces-white-as-ghosts goths, and beautiful young women wearing those awful eyeglasses that had made wallflowers out of nearsighted girls in his high school thirty-some years ago. And then there were the people one hardly saw at all, off-the-racks, clothes are second thought, the bookish, the musicians. People who harbored enough love of music to spend more than they should on fairly decent season ticket seats. People who smiled at him when he walked by.
     Will found a spot near the staircase and tried not to meet anyone’s eyes. He waited with impatience. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, coming here tonight. Maybe he wasn’t ready for this. His unease continued to grow until began to pace the floor nervously.
     Were the people over by the wine bar eyeing him? And what about the man at the foot of the stairs? Were they all looking? As though he were one of the poor creatures on display at the Portland Zoo. “Look mamma, it’s the man in the newspaper!” “Such a nice-looking man, Martha. Who would have thought he would be involved in those perverted sex games.” “You shouldn’t feed him peanuts, dear.”
     Will was ready to bolt for the door when Doug came in. Doug’s arrival had a calming effect on him, and his paranoia quickly dissipated. They exchanged greetings and Doug led Will, silently, to their seats on the first row of the lower balcony. No idle chitchat seemed necessary. The bond between them was almost tangible, like his memory of Emmy.
     Will peered over the railing at the orchestra seating below. In early times, that was where the rabble were seated, at floor level. But hanging over the railing was bad form, Will stepped back and the orchestra seating disappeared from view. The balcony seemed to float just at edge of the stage.
     The closest Will had previously been to the stage had been the middle of the middle balcony. Will and Barb had been invited to see YoYo Ma with Ed Danzig and his wife, Clare or Sally or something. Ed was a new professor in the Lit Dept, but Will and he had first met in Germany when they were both playing ex-patriot and teaching in Berlin. Where was Ed now?
     The last time he had been to the symphony, he and Emmy had ended up in those seats in the farthest corner of the balcony. The couple next to them insisted, “they’re the best seats in the house.”
     “The sound up here is so much better,” the man said. He reminded Will of his 9th grade science teacher who had an undefinable eccentricity about him and a bewildered look as though he were perpetually waking from a nap.
     “Yep. It’s the acoustics. I’ve sat just about everywhere and these are the best.”
     Will began to settle into a reverie when the sound of his name brought him back to the present.
     “Will, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
     He hadn’t prepared for the possibility of social introductions. It occurred to him that these strangers would know about him and about Emmy, and the stories in the press. They might be wondering if he was the one who killed her.
     A feeling of guilt overwhelmed him. What was he doing here at the symphony only a week after her death? He should be grieving, alone, or maybe he should have flown to Vermont to be with Zoe. But he hadn’t yet told her about the existence of Emmy. He hadn’t wanted Emmy to be another issue between them.
     “…Professor Will Adelhardt,” Doug was saying, as Will brought himself back to the present. The man extended his hand. Will shook it, automatically.
     “Pleased to meet you.” Will hadn’t heard the man’s name. Not that it mattered. Doug introduced him to another couple behind them. They seemed nice. Maybe too nice? Gradually, he realized that no one was going to ask him about Emmy. That no one would reproach him. One thing about the rich, they had their gentility, their social etiquette.
     The first piece began as a whisper, a gentle wave on the shore. A single flute, swept over by a quiet rush of woodwinds, retreating, overtaken by the cellos and violas, retreating once more, but not so far this time, then building slowly like an incoming tide. Will let it wash over him, tried not to become involved, but to let it be background music to his pain. The full string section overtook the receding violas. The movement continued to intensify from pianissimo to forte, in one long crescendo, and he felt the tears gathering, the crescendo culminated in a giant wave. Out of the bittersweet flotsam came the beautiful sound of Midori’s violin.
     An unstoppable surge of emotion convulsed him. Despite his best effort at decorum, tears ran down his face. It had been a mistake. He shouldn’t have come. It was too soon.
     Will tried to turn his thoughts away from Emmy. He examined the ornate filigreed ceiling, the elaborate architecture of the auditorium, faces in the audience reflecting stage light, and the stage itself, and Midori in her yellow dress hunched over her violin, elbow jutting out at an unlikely angle, each movement exaggerated–the mad violinist in search of superstardom. Freakish circus act to please the people’s image of genius.
     “It’s what capitalism does to all of us.” That’s what Emmy would say.
     Will discreetly wiped the tears from his face with his finger feeling a little embarrassed. For a moment the picture in his mind of Emmy in her surplus army jacket and beret, pontificating idealistically about the human condition, gladdened his heart. Just like that his smile turned to a fresh stream of tears.
     “She’s gone.”
     “I’m sorry, Will. Did you say something?” He had forgotten about Doug sitting there beside him. Had he spoken aloud?
     “No…no,” He looked at Doug and smiled weakly. Doug seemed not to notice the tears on Will’s cheeks.
     The final movement came to an end as softly as the first had begun, and Doug leaned in close to Will. “Listen to the solo in this next piece,” he whispered. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”

     “Where are you from, Will?” Doug asked as they walked toward The Governor Hotel.
     “Rhode Island. Providence.”
     “A long way from Portland. What brought you here?”
     “I went to college at the U of O,” Will said. “Then I bounced around a bit. Took a master’s degree and went overseas. I taught for awhile in Germany. Met my first wife there. Anyway, not to bore you with the story of my life, I ended up in Portland when my second wife took a job here. I was fortunate to be offered a position at Portland State. I had been telling her how great Oregon was for a long time. So, here I am.”
     “What’s Providence like?” Doug asked.
     Will shrugged. “It’s like most New England seaboard towns. It’s windy and leafless.”
     That wasn’t strictly true, he thought. In spring and summer, the trees were leafed out and in the fall, they were brilliant, but it was winter that he mostly remembered. And in the winter, there were no leaves. Except for the evergreens, was it really so different here? “When I left, the factory jobs were moving south. A lot of people were without work. I don’t imagine Portland has gone through anything like that since before World War II.”
     “We’ve lost a lot of timber jobs. Some of our manufacturing has moved to Mexico. But not like the Northeast. Not in my lifetime,”
     It seemed to Will that their lives were sandwiched between hard times. Between the mid-century calamities of war and depression, and whatever was coming. There was something coming. It didn’t take a genius to see the signs. But it wasn’t here yet. Right now, they were strolling in the casual evening among other people, enjoying the remnant warmth of the sun gone down. They walked in silence for a time. Will felt the world around him remade as if the vibrations of the symphony had altered his senses so that what he saw and heard and felt, what he experienced of this city street, was different in some subtle and miraculous way. Did Emmy exist somewhere in this city? Would she step out of the shadows of that doorway? Or maybe she could be standing just beyond the glass and his reflection, among the eyeless, lipless mannequins. The smooth plastic cheek planes in their lack of particularity were meant to represent anybody. What they represent is us, he thought, in our loneliness and isolation, how faceless we are to each other. Yet, walking with Doug, with Midori still in his ears, with Emmy in both their hearts, Will felt something close to peace. He’d never been much good at being friends with other men, but he welcomed Doug’s companionship. Maybe it was his need to have Emmy substantiated, evidenced by someone else close to her. Emmy had embraced Doug in the beginning as her only relative and then as a trusted friend.
     Doug, she had written in her diary, is all I have of family. He’s not what I expected. Maybe not what I wanted. But he is family. And I think that he is more alone than I am. At least I have Will.

     At The Governor, they sat in a couple of wingbacks, upholstered in a dusty rose fabric, side by side, a small round marble-topped table between them. Doug ordered Drambuie, Will asked for a single malt. A few feet away, a baby grand piano, polished to a reflective sheen, waited for the next set. The pianist, returning from her break, crossed paths with their waiter. There were few others in the room. The pianist seated herself, smiled at them and began to play something soft and melodic.
     “Overseas. You said you taught in Germany?” Doug referred back to Will’s brief biography. “Seems like Emmy did tell me that you spoke German and French.”
     “Only German. I’m not that good with languages,” Will replied.
     “What did you teach in Germany.”
     “American History in an English immersion school,” Will smiled. “That was a good time. Teaching young kids. They were well fed and eager to learn. No fools, either. It was their pointed questions that led me to teach parts of American History that I would never have been able to teach in America. It was not the story of the rich and powerful. They knew all that anyway. It was the struggle of ordinary people to break out of the virtual enslavement of the factories and mines.”
     “And the log camps, I suppose,” Doug said. “That’s where quite a bit of the fortune that keeps me in Drambuie came from.” On cue, the waiter returned with their drinks. “The wealthy. You don’t like us very much, do you?”
     “As a class? Not much,” Will said without a hint of apology. “Individuals I take as they come. You’re probably pretty much like any other population. You have your spectrum of selfishness.”
     “I think you’re too charitable,” Doug said. He took a careful, savoring sip of his liqueur. “The rich are evil.”
     At least Will thought that Doug said evil, but the piano piece had shifted into fortissimo and Doug’s words got a little lost in the arpeggio.
     When the music softened again, Doug changed the subject. “I’ve never been to Europe. I spent some time in South America, Argentina, Chile. My father had some business interests there. I looked after them for a time after I left college. Unlike you, I didn’t graduate.”
     The piano rolled over their conversation again. When the volume lowered, Doug asked, “Would you like to get out of here? I like piano music, but I don’t like to compete with it.”
     Will nodded and finished his drink. Doug had already finished his, which surprised Will. Doug had been sipping, almost daintily, but apparently steadily.
     “We don’t get an evening like this too often,” Will said as they stepped out of the hotel lobby onto 10th Avenue. “How about a walk on the waterfront?”
     Doug smiled. He seemed genuinely pleased to be with Will and willing to let the evening expand.
     The aura of the symphony had completely deserted Will. He strolled with Doug through the ordinary world. For the next ten blocks, the windows they passed hawked wares and offered no portal to Emmy. They reached Naito Parkway. Across the four lane, tree-lined avenue was the waterfront park, the Willamette River, and the East Side, which was mostly hidden from view by the interstate freeway. Tiny new blades of grass stippled the stretch of lawn between Naito and the river. The grass had to be replanted every year after the carnival. The “Rose Festival Fun Center” it was called, but it was just a carnival, with rides and lots of step-right-up-and-take-a-chance booths, and terrible food guaranteed to clog arteries and leave you feeling sick, even if you never stepped into one of the stomach jolting rides. The grass was generally trampled to death and if there was rain, the whole thing became a sea of mud that had to be mitigated with boardwalks. And every year the grass was planted again.
     Will remembered being stuck in traffic because the street was blocked by a carnival supply truck backing onto the green and a ship was coming in so that the bridges were up that day he’d gotten home from Eugene. He felt a sudden wave of grief, a dislocation of time. He staggered and Doug reached a hand out to steady him.
     “Are you all right?”
     Will shook his head. “I’m feeling a little dizzy.” He pointed toward one of the benches facing the river. “I’d like to sit down.”
     On the bench, he closed his eyes and they sat in silence for some time. When Doug began to speak, he did so, so softly that it took a moment or two for Will to realize it.
     “My mother played the violin. A beautiful violin that her father had given her. If she hadn’t married my father, if she had stayed in New York, she would have become a great violinist. Instead, she gave me concerts, played whole symphonies for a little boy. For hours in the afternoons, while my father was building on the family fortune, in the summers when I wasn’t in school. And sometimes she even came to my school and took me home. She’d tell them I had an appointment with some doctor or other. They must have thought I was a sickly boy. She’d bring me home and I would listen to her play.”
     Will was no longer feeling dizzy, but he kept his eyes closed, fascinated by the story Doug was telling.
     “I don’t know what possessed him, why he wanted to destroy that beautiful world she lived in. I remember that it was early spring. That the rain was pouring in buckets. She stood with her back to the tower windows. Behind her, I could see sheets of water overflowing the eaves. Whenever she played pianissimo, I could hear the rain hitting the roof. I was spellbound between the piece…I’d never heard it before and haven’t heard since…between the piece and the rain and how beautiful she was and the music was and the rain…” Doug stopped speaking.
     Will opened his eyes and stared out at the river, wide and glittery in the moonlight, and the city light. Doug stirred beside him and began to speak again.
     “I felt him behind me coming through the opening at the top of the stairs. I knew he was there, but I didn’t move. I didn’t warn her. He grabbed the violin from her arms. She hit him with the bow and he smashed her violin against the stone wall of the tower. Later that day, after the rain stopped, when my mother was in her bed dosed by whatever sleeping pill Father was able to get for her, he ordered me to pick up the pieces of the violin and take it outside to the trash pile. He told me to burn it. I’d never been allowed to burn the trash before.”
     Will didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t know if Doug wanted a response. And before he could say anything, Doug said, “Well, I guess she was not in her right mind.”
     “What do we know about minds?” Will said. “Maybe it was right for her.”