Circling out of the blue in an easy spiral, the hawks are no more than narrow lines. How do you measure the distance between you, gazing up at the blue above the needle points of the tallest firs, and those two hawks, that pair of raptors on the hunt? Their descent toward you is deliberate, unhurried. They grow larger and larger, their circle wider now than the visible sky between the firs. Then one is a missile. Just that quick. Your eyes are not fast enough to see the wings fold back, they are just suddenly tight against its body and the spiral no longer exists, the hawk is diving straight earthward. Its mate, as if in complete disinterest, continues to circle, to float on the draft of air that flows up the hillside toward the ridge of Forest Park from the city in the valley by the river.
     Lucy and Will watched the hawks for several minutes. They sat on a park bench near the edge of Washington Park. This is a thing that Emmy missed, Will thought. The sun just warm enough to find your bones. Deep green fir trees and the lush grass rolling out to the edge of the hill. Mt. Hood sharp against the naked sky, still blanketed with winter’s deep snows, solid as the earth itself above the delicate skyscrapers. These things Emmy missed. And the hawks making light of the kill. He has been keeping a list this long year. A mental list. On the one side, the things that Emmy missed. On the other, the things she was spared.
     She would like to have seen Allison shed the Bug image.
     “Does Marta hear from Allison?” Will asked Lucy.
     “She’s written a couple of times and called some. She is doing well at that college in Tallequah. Sounds like she really likes living with her dad. I think it was rough at first, though.” 
     “Well, it is a bit to get used to, isn’t it? There she was with no one really telling her what to do, pretty much taking care of herself. Now she has a parent sticking his nose into her business all the time.”
     Lucy nodded. “But the funny thing is, I think Allison is beginning to enjoy having someone parent her for a change.”
     “I can’t help thinking about Tweak. She really couldn’t understand why Allison left,” Will said.
     “That’s not something you understand. It might be something you get used to, something you rationalize, but you never understand it,” Lucy said.
     They both fell silent again. Will tipped his head back to look for the hawks, but the sky above him was empty. He closed his eyes. “May, last year. This is the anniversary of the dedication of this park bench.”
     “I remember. You and Emmy were there, weren’t you?” Lucy asked. “What was that like?”
     “It was amusing, actually.” Will kept his eyes closed. “There were a group of people from a conference of Labor Historians. Then there were some people from the Cultural Preservation Society. Very upper class. They had found a cousin or nephew of John Reed’s and brought him out here, from wherever he’s living. And then,” Will laughed, “then there was the poet.”
     “So what was amusing?” Lucy asked.
     “What was it that Emmy said? Something about John Reed not being thrilled with the ceremony. She said the people there all seemed so capitalist establishment. And now that the Soviet Union, the grand experiment, has crumbled, John Reed is a safe subject. He doesn’t pose a threat. But that’s not what was funny. The thing that made me laugh was what she said about the poet. Which, isn’t really so funny at all. It’s that society people like to keep their intellectuals on a leash. You can lunge out, and spit, and snap at the air, and as long as you remain under control, as long as you look good on the end of that leash, your eccentricities will be tolerated. I don’t know how fair that observation is, but it’s what Emmy saw.”
     They lapsed into silence for a moment. Then Lucy broke it. “It has been a hell of a year hasn’t it? The stock market dive, 9/11, the energy crisis, Enron.”
     The things that Emmy was spared. Of all of them that terrible day in September and all of us learning to walk again. That has been the hardest, so far, Will thought. It isn’t exactly over, either. Half the country is worried about terrorist attacks and everyone else is looking over their shoulders for the next blow, the next freedom taken away, listening for the sound of marching boots in the street. He shuddered, felt cold. Welcome to the twenty-first century.
     “Are you all right, Will?”
     “No, but I’m not sick, if that’s what you mean,” Will said. He wanted to draw the subject away from his dark thoughts. “When is Madeline coming home?”
     “They’re not at that stage yet. Chris wants her back, but she needs to be sure that Teddy can’t hurt her anymore. She is still blaming herself because she didn’t see what was going on.” Lucy sighed. “Maddy’s going to a boarding school in Seattle and Chris is going up at the end of the school year. They plan to stay somewhere in the San Juans all summer.”
     “That will be good,” Will said. “Teddy’s case is liable to drag on for a long time. I wonder if any of this will stick to him?”
     “I don’t see how he’s going to get out of this one. Can you believe those hired men of his were going to kill the girls because Teddy wanted to cover up his abuse of Maddy? He must hold life pretty cheap,” Lucy said.
     “When the arrogant fall, get out of the way,” Will mused. “At least he’s not on the Council any more.”
     Will took in a deep breath. “What about Marta?” he continued. “I understand the police have decided not to press the missing girls issue.”
     “Yeah,” Lucy sighed, “thank god for that. I don’t think they had anything on Colin, really. Nothing that would make a case. Marta’s not the least bit regretful about her role in that affair, but I think she will be more circumspect in the future. Not to change the subject, but Marta got that summer job for the Forest Service. She’s going to fight forest fires this summer and save up enough to go to school in New Mexico.”
     “Do you think she will follow through with school, this time?”
     “Who knows. It’s up to her,” Lucy said.
     It is always up to them, Will thought.
     “So what is it like, having her home with you?” Lucy gestured toward the young woman walking up the slope toward them. The sun was glinting off her coppery red hair.
     “Zoe,” Will said, and his throat got tight. “We’re learning how to treat each other like adults.” He scratched his beard. After that final fire which had consumed Doug and the remains of Bartlett House, Will had called Zoe. He remembered with some discomfort that he had been emotional, crying in the middle of the phone call. “So many things have happened,” he had told her. “I can’t lose you..” To his deep relief, Zoe did not hang up on him, or rebuke him, ask him why he thought he could just call her up and think they could pick up where they left off. Instead, she told him she had been thinking about leaving Vermont. It was too cold, and too distant. She didn’t know exactly what it was distant from, but she wondered if maybe she could come stay with him and check out Portland State. “I know they have some good programs. I’m tired of the East Coast. Everyone is so tense.” She did not come right away. She stayed in Vermont for her sophomore year. But at Christmas break, she came out and applied to transfer for the next fall term. She was living with him now. They were thinking about moving into a three bedroom that was coming available down the hall. It was something they could afford together now that Zoe had taken over Emmy’s job at Orville’s bookstore.
     “The thing I haven’t figured out,” Will said to Lucy, “and I don’t know that it really matters, is whether she chose PSU because I teach there or in spite of my teaching there.”
     “I wouldn’t ask her.”
     “I don’t intend to.”
     Zoe stopped a few feet away and turned to face the vista of city and mountain.
     Will got up from the bench and went over to stand beside her.
     “This is my favorite view of the city. Next to coming around Mt Tabor where that little street meets up with Stark. You’re driving through all those leafy trees and big houses. Almost like a country lane, with the hill beside you. Then wham! There it is again, like a jewel.”
     “You have been gone a long time, haven’t you.” Will laughed. “Maybe you can show me how to see it that way again.”