First Daughter

February 1

UNDER THE buttermilk sky of an early dusk, Jack stood at the front window of his living room, staring fixedly at the bleak view of his driveway. All the crispy leaves were gone. Overnight, a bitter front out of the Midwest had nailed shut the coffin of the January thaw. All day long, the District, home to mild winters, had been shivering.

Earlier in the day, he'd driven the white Lincoln Continental down Kansas Avenue NE. Parking outside the Black Abyssinian Cultural Center, he hurried across the pavement and through the door. There, he collected the month's rent, minus an amount for the time Chris Armitage and Peter Link occupied the back room. The leaders wanted to pay the full month's rent, but Jack said no. He drank a cup of dark, rich African hot chocolate with them, thanked them, and left.

Trashy wind, full of cinders and yesterday's newspapers, followed him down the block to the FASR office. Inside, everything looked more or less back to normal, except that Calla Myers's desk was unoccupied, wreathed in black ribbon. A number of lit candles clustered on the desktop in front of a framed photo of her with some of her coworkers. They were all smiling. Calla was waving at the camera.

Peter Link was out on assignment, but Jack spent a few minutes chatting with Armitage. He knew he'd made a friend there.

JACK ABANDONED the window and its bleak view to put a Rolling Stones record on the stereo. "Gimme Shelter" began, simmered to a slow boil. "War, children," he sang in a melancholy voice along with Mick and Merry Clayton, "it's just a shot away."

He returned to the window, waiting. Tonight, he had a date with Sharon. He had no idea how that was going to go, but at last she had agreed to come to the house, Gus's house, the house of Jack's adolescence. If he and Sharon didn't kill each other, then next Saturday the two of them would spend the afternoon with Alli. It was Alli's idea; maybe she wanted to play matchmaker-or peacemaker, anyway.

He thought about Alli and her effect on him. There was a time when he didn't know himself or the world. Worse, he couldn't accept that he didn't know himself, so he kept pushing everyone away. Without intimate mirrors, you have no hope of knowing yourself. So he kept Sharon and Emma-the two people best equipped to be his intimate mirrors-at arm's length, while he deluded himself into thinking his job came first, that saving strangers was more important than allowing anyone to know him.

He recalled his first encounter with Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. He hadn't liked the book, because he was too young to fully appreciate it. But with living comes wisdom. Now a line from the book surfaced in his mind. There's a moment when Steppenwolf is struck by a revelation. In order to understand himself, and therefore the world, he needs to "traverse, not once more but often, the hell of his inner being." This, Jack understood, was the most difficult thing a human being could attempt. Simply to try was heroic. To succeed, well…

He heard the soft crunch of the gravel, and then Sharon's car nosed into the driveway. She pulled in to the right, parked the car, and got out. She was wearing a black ankle-length wool coat, black boots, and a tomato-red scarf wrapped around her throat. Aching to see her long legs, he leaned forward until his nose made an imprint on the glass and his breath turned to fog.

She stood for a moment, as if uncertain which way to go. Jack held his next breath, wondering if she was contemplating getting back in her car and driving off. That would be just like her-or at least just like the woman he had known.

Low, cool sunlight came through the branches, speckling her face. It shone off her hair, made the color of her eyes clear and rich. She looked young, very much as she had when he'd first met her. From this distance, the lines of worry and grief weren't visible, as if time itself had been obliterated.

Jack saw her gazing at the house, taking in its shape and dimensions. She took a step toward him, then another. As she moved, she seemed to gain momentum, as if her intent had focused down. She looked like someone who had made up her mind, who knew what she wanted.

Jack understood that completely, and his heart swelled. His love for her was palpable, as if he'd never loved her before, or even knew what love was. Perhaps he never had. It was all too likely that the consequences of pain and loss had driven love from his heart. But not, it seemed, from him altogether. This was Emma's gift to him. She had taught him not only to recognize love but to seize it as well.

Sharon mounted the steps. He left the window and never again thought the view through it was bleak.

He felt Emma all around him, like the collective shimmer of stars on a moonless night.

There are many paths to redemption, he thought. This is mine.

He heard the knock on the door, and opened it.