Shortly could be four minutes or forty, Ursula knows. Kim hands Bess back. Ursula holds Bess in one arm and rummages through her purse for her phone with the other.

It’s Jake, probably calling to find out how the appointment went. Well, if he was so keen to know, he could have brought Bess in himself. Ursula ignores it.

Ten minutes later, there is still no doctor and Ursula is getting antsy. It’s 9:15. She hears voices in the hallway, picks up on a sense of urgency—maybe they have a very sick or injured child? Ursula checks her cell phone; Jake has left a voicemail. Ursula doesn’t have time to listen to it. She calls her assistant, Marjorie, at work. Marjorie doesn’t answer, which is highly unusual, as Marjorie is the most reliable and efficient legal assistant in the District.

Another ten minutes pass. This is ludicrous, right? Ursula would stick her head out into the hallway but she suspects that as soon as she complains about how long this is taking, she’ll be bumped back even further.

Ursula’s phone rings again. Marjorie.

“You’ve heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Two planes hit the World Trade Center in New York,” Marjorie says. Her voice sounds funny, like maybe she’s about to cry. Marjorie, cry? She’s the daughter of a World War II colonel.

Then Ursula gets it. The World Trade Center.

“They’re saying between floors ninety-three and ninety-nine of the North Tower,” Marjorie says. “I’m not sure about the South Tower. We’re trying to find out.”

“Oh dear God,” Ursula says. The New York offices of Andrews, Hewitt, and Douglas are on the eighty-fourth floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Anders.

Ursula lays Bess on the table and tries to snap her back into her onesie with trembling fingers. She goes out into the hallway. Where is everyone? Ursula moves down the corridor, deeper into the office. She finds Deena, Kim, and Dr. Jennifer Wells staring at a boxy little TV. On the screen, a plane flies directly into the top of a skyscraper, leaving fiery destruction in its wake. It looks like a movie.

Ursula gasps. Dr. Wells turns around. “I’ll be right in,” she says.

“No,” she says. “I have to go.”

She doesn’t bother with a cab. Her apartment is only ten blocks away, and Ursula wants to walk. Fresh air, sunshine. People on the street are either oblivious or on their mobile phones in obvious distress. There’s a crowd gathered outside of an electronics store that has a flat-screen TV in the window. Ursula peers over a gentleman’s shoulder and sees more footage of a plane hitting a building. Or maybe that was the other building, the South Tower?

The gentleman turns around and fixes his eyes on Ursula. He’s about sixty, bulbous nose, visible pores, kind eyes brimming with tears. “People are jumping,” he says.

Ursula hurries down the street pushing Bess in her Maclaren stroller; it’s the Ferrari of strollers, the ride is smooth, Bess is quiet, Ursula just has to get home. The eighty-fourth floor of the South Tower. Was that hit? Was it below the crash? Above it? Below it would be better, right? But maybe not. Maybe not.

People are jumping.

Ursula pushes Bess into the lobby of their building. The doorman, Ernie, sees Ursula. He’s spooked, she can tell.

“A plane just hit the Pentagon,” he says.

“What?” she cries. She pulls Bess out of her stroller and hugs her to her chest. She needs Jake. Where is Jake?

“Mr. McCloud is upstairs?” she says. “He hasn’t come down?”

“No, ma’am,” Ernie says.

Ursula hurries to the elevator. Is it safe to go up? They live on the eleventh floor. Surely a plane won’t hit a residential building in the middle of town. Will it?

The next two hours are a blur. The Pentagon, a mere three miles away, has been hit. Three miles; if she walked Bess to the river, they would see the smoke. A plane has crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania; rumor has it this plane was headed for the White House or the Capitol Building. The White House is less than a mile away. They’re under attack. Despite this, Ursula wants to go into work. She needs to know how the New York office is faring. Jake tells her she’s not going anywhere. Ursula calls Marjorie, gets no answer.

Hank calls and says it’s likely the law firm lost everyone in New York, or everyone who was in the office by nine that morning. He’s trying to get a list of names. Ursula is shaking. “Anders?” she says.

“I’ll let you know.” But Hank’s voice says he already knows. Anders, like Ursula, always got to the office early. He liked to get a jump on the day.

Jake shouts from the other room. The North Tower has collapsed. It just…sunk in on itself. And then the South Tower collapses.

Finally, Ursula cries.

That night, as Ursula sits in front of the television, potted like a plant, nursing Bess, she makes a decision. It’s radical. Maybe even crazy.

But what qualifies as crazy now? Hank confirmed late that afternoon that Andrews, Hewitt, and Douglas lost seventy-one people in the New York office—attorneys, paralegals, secretaries.

Anders is presumed dead.

The managing partner, a Goliath named Cap Randle, is presumed dead, and his wife, eight months pregnant, immediately went into labor when she heard and delivered their first child, a son.

It’s too awful to think about.

Amelia James Renninger, AJ, is alive. She had an appointment to get her eyebrows done in Chinatown at eight thirty that morning, and as she was walking to work, she told Hank, she watched the second plane hit.

Why couldn’t it have been Anders with some kind of appointment? Ursula wonders. A haircut for his golden locks, or the dentist? Then she feels monstrous.

Jake stands between Ursula and the TV screen. “I think we should turn it off for tonight,” he says.

“But what if something else happens?”

“Nothing else is going to happen.”

Ursula turns off the TV and unlatches Bess, who has fallen asleep at the breast. Sweet, innocent baby girl. She deserves a world better than this—and Ursula is going to give it to her. “Sit with me,” Ursula says to Jake.

“Do you want me to put the baby in her crib?”

“I want you to sit down,” Ursula says. She’s suddenly all nerve endings.

Jake perches on the edge of the sofa. “What is it.”

“I want to leave Washington,” she says. “I want to move back to Indiana.”

“What?” Jake says. He laughs. “What are you talking about? I know you’re upset, Ursula. I’m upset too. The entire country is upset. But we can’t just uproot our lives and move back to the Bend because you think it’s safer.”

“Sure we can,” Ursula says. “My mother is there, and your parents are there. We have family there.”

“Right, I know. But your career is here, Ursula. What on earth do you think you’re going to do in South Bend?”

Ursula gently kisses Bess’s forehead, then smiles down at her. “I’m going to run for office.”

Summer #10: 2002

What are we talking about in 2002? The Queen Mother; No Child Left Behind; Daniel Pearl; Homeland Security; the Beltway sniper attacks; Elizabeth Smart; farm-to-table; Chandra Levy; Jed Bartlet, Leo McGarry, Toby Ziegler, Sam Seaborn, Josh Lyman; “My friend the Communist holds meetings in his RV”; The Nanny Diaries; Andrea Yates; American Idol; 8 Mile; Match.com.