Alistair looked out the window at One World Trade, looming imposingly before them. Beyond it the Hudson flowed with geologic aplomb. Everywhere you looked the dumb earth had been stamped out, but it was possible to imagine, on a day like today, when the sun shone brighter than anything, this place as it had been centuries before, wooded and quiet, when the first Europeans (Maura’s father’s forebears among them) had arrived. All the business that had been undertaken since then seemed to Alistair like a great beautiful error.
