“I’m pregnant too,” she says.

Part Two

Thirties

Summer #9: 2001

What are we talking about in 2001? A Tuesday morning with a crystalline sky. American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. United Airlines Flight 175, also from Boston to Los Angeles, crashes into the South Tower at 9:03. American Airlines Flight 77 from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles hits the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. And at 10:03 a.m., United Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco crashes in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. There are 2,996 fatalities. The country is stunned and grief-stricken. We have been attacked on our own soil for the first time since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941. A man in a navy-blue summer-weight suit launches himself from a 103rd-floor window. An El Salvadoran line chef running late for his prep shift at Windows on the World watches the sky turn to fire and the top of the building—six floors beneath the kitchen where he works—explode. Cantor Fitzgerald. President Bush in a bunker. The pregnant widow of a brave man who says, “Let’s roll.” The plane that went down in Pennsylvania was headed for the Capitol Building. The world says, America was attacked. America says, New York was attacked. New York says, Downtown was attacked. There’s a televised benefit concert, America: A Tribute to Heroes. The Goo Goo Dolls and Limp Bizkit sing “Wish You Were Here.” Voicemail messages from the dead. First responders running up the stairs while civilians run down. Flyers plastered across Manhattan: MISSING. The date—chosen by the terrorists because of the bluebird weather—has an eerie significance: 9/11. Though we will all come to call it Nine Eleven.

If there’d been anything else we cared about that year before this happened, it was now debris. It became part of what we lost.

Ursula loves being a mother.

This surprises no one more than Ursula herself. Her pregnancy was difficult. Everything that could go wrong did: she had aggressive morning sickness, she got carpal tunnel in both hands, she had gestational diabetes, and, finally, in her seventh month, placenta previa, which put her on bed rest until her delivery date.

This last development, the bed rest, was not received well at work. Hank Silver did the predictable thing, showing up at Ursula’s apartment and suggesting that maybe her priorities were shifting, maybe instead of relentlessly pursuing partner, she wanted to consider part-time hours, a support role.

“The Mommy Track?” Ursula asked with no small amount of disgust, for that was what everyone called it. “You know me better than that, Hank. I’m going to close this case from bed. And after the baby is born, I’m going to work twice as hard. I will make partner this year. That was my goal when I started. That’s my goal now.”

(Hank knew to tread carefully; the last thing he wanted was a sexual-discrimination suit. But Hank had five children; he understood better than anyone that children changed things. They took priority, as Ursula would soon find out.)

“Okay,” Hank said. “I just wanted to let you know that if you feel differently after the baby is born, we will all understand.”

They would understand? Sweet of them. Ursula had seen the way her coworkers’ attitudes toward her changed with the news of the pregnancy. Ursula had once heard two of the male partners call her a ball-crusher, and privately she was flattered. But gone were her slim tailored suits and her wicked stilettos. She had grown round and soft; her breasts were swollen and heavy, and the only pair of shoes that fit were her Ferragamo flats, and even those were uncomfortable. She took them off under her desk and rubbed her sore insteps.

Once Ursula announced her pregnancy, her decision-making was questioned and people talked over her; even paralegals talked over her. Ursula couldn’t believe the stereotypes that came to life in vivid Technicolor right before her eyes.

Ursula wanted to cut Hank Silver. He had five kids of his own and crowed about their accomplishments—the squash!—but there had been no such conversation in the office with Hank when his children were born, because Hank was a man. Hank had a wife at home to handle the kids, and even if he had been a single father, there would have been his mother, his sister, a housekeeper, a legion of nannies or au pairs, and no one would have batted an eye, no one would have said he was “farming the kids out,” no one would have called him a bad father or suggested that he go part-time, take on a support role.

Incredibly, however, Ursula had one worry more pressing than her career or discrimination in the workplace.

That worry was the baby’s paternity.

Ursula and Jake had had all of the standard prenatal tests done—two ultrasounds, nuchal-fold test to check for Down syndrome, Rh factor and carrier screening—but none of these told Ursula what she really needed to know: Was the baby Jake’s or Anders’s?

Ursula’s emotional affair with Anders Jorgensen started in Las Vegas, but they didn’t cross the line until they were assigned the case together in Lubbock, Texas, where there was absolutely nothing to do in their downtime but go to the rinky-dink hotel bar—aptly named Impulse—and drink. During her first visit to Impulse, Ursula ordered a glass of champagne and was given Prosecco that tasted like a green-apple Jolly Rancher. She switched to vodka (they had Stoli, thank goodness) and soda with a quarter lemon. She could drink ten in a row; they were sharp enough to cut through the heat outside the bar and the cheesiness inside it.

The surprising thing wasn’t that Ursula slept with Anders; the surprising thing was how long she waited. Anders was tall, broad, blond, a Viking—that’s right, descended from actual Vikings. His size and strength were surpassed only by how smart he was, how savvy in negotiations, how ridiculously good at his job. He pushed Ursula to work harder and better; he inspired her. She was energized when he was in the room. Could she impress him? Yes, she saw that she did impress him. It gave her a jolt. She became an addict for his attention.

But what about Jake?

While Ursula was sucking down bright, citrusy Stoli sodas at Impulse, Jake was at home in Washington playing games on his computer instead of job hunting. He was, Ursula thought, in danger of becoming as interesting and influential as a soft-boiled egg. But Ursula had been raised Catholic and she had personal honor. She was not morally flimsy.

Or was she?

The allure of Anders was stronger than Ursula’s innate morality. He broke her code, cracked the safe—whatever metaphor you want to use, the result was Ursula and Anders in bed. A lot.

Ursula reasoned—as she padded barefoot down the hallway of the Hyatt Place back to her own room, her skirt suit hastily donned, hanging crooked, partially unzipped—that the problem was that she and Jake had met too young, and during the times when they had been broken up, Ursula hadn’t sowed her wild oats the way she should have.

Excuses: She despised them. She had been led to temptation, she had not been noble enough to resist, and her bad behavior had resulted in this punishment: she didn’t know whose baby she was carrying.

When Anders found out Ursula was pregnant, the affair ended abruptly. Anders had only this to say to Ursula: It’s not mine. Do you hear me, Ursula? Even if it’s mine, it’s not mine.