I shrug my shoulders and shake my head. “There’s nothing,” I tell her. I raise my right hand, three fingers held tightly together.

“What’s that?”

“Boy Scout sign,” I tell her.

“When were you in the Scouts?”

“You don’t have to belong to know the sign.”

“Exactly, and stop trying to change the subject.” Sarah studies me for a couple of seconds. “Dad, I’m worried about you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a basket case. I know we’ve both been through a lot. The last several months haven’t been easy for either of us. But it’s over. Look out there.” She points toward the front window in the living room. “The cameras are gone. Those people are off our front lawn. And unless we’ve moved to hell, they won’t be coming back. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

“I know.”

She glances down toward the floor for a moment and collects her thoughts. “You know, Dad, I’ve been thinking. It might be good if you got some help,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m talking about professional help,” she says. “Since what happened at North Island you’re not the same person anymore. You’re never happy. You’re always worried. It seems like you’re constantly looking over your shoulder, as if something bad is about to happen. Is there some reason for this?”

“No…I guess I’m just…well, you know…”

“No, I don’t!”

“A little jumpy!” I snap at her.

“That’s what I mean. You need help,” she says. “I know you don’t want to talk to me about what happened that day. And if it makes you uncomfortable, I understand. But you need to talk to somebody.”

She stands there looking at me.

At first I don’t say anything. When the words finally come out, it’s as if they are emitted from some feeble golem-like ghost buried in the depths of my soul-“I’m all right.”

“I don’t know everything that happened that day, only what I read in the papers. But I know it must have been awful. It had to be-the noise, the violence, people being shot and killed like that. I am guessing that you saw a lot of it.”

“You know what they say: ‘As long as the right people get shot.’” I try to make light of it.

“Don’t even joke,” she says. “It doesn’t matter whether they were good or bad or what they were doing. They still died and you had to watch it. There’s no shame in seeing a therapist,” says Sarah. “There is such a thing as post-traumatic stress.” She pauses for a moment and looks away. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I found the pistol in your nightstand.”

Whoops!

“When did that start?” she asks. “We’ve never had a gun in the house before. Not that I know of.”

“No. You’re right.” A set of headlights flash as a car turns into the driveway out in front.

“I should have told you. Thorpe, you remember, the man from the FBI. He told Harry and me and Herman that there’s probably nothing to worry about, but until they tie up all the loose ends, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep some form of self-protection in the house.”

“What kind of loose ends?” says Sarah.

“Nothing you need to worry about. Go ahead and have a good time with your friend. Do you have your cell phone?”

She nods.

“Do you mind telling me where you’re going tonight? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

She shakes her head. “No, no, it’s all right,” she says. “I think we’re doing Café Coyote for dinner. It’s a Mexican place in Old Town.”

“I know it,” I tell her.

“And then I think we’re going to a club somewhere in the Gaslamp area. I don’t know the name. Jenny’s been there before.”

“That’s okay.”

“If you want me to stay home, I will,” she says.

“No. That’s all right. You go and have fun. And don’t worry about anything. It’s fine.”

The doorbell rings. Sarah grabs her coat and opens the door.

“How are you?”

“Sorry I’m late.” There is a lot of chatter and giggling at the door.

“Come in. I want you to meet my dad.”

A second later a tall, blond young woman, nicely dressed, long legged and a little ungainly, steps through the door and under the lights in the entry hall. She looks well scrubbed, blue eyes and rosy cheeks, wearing a nervous smile and high heels that make me think of a newborn fawn trying to find its footing. She is gripping a tiny sequined bag to her stomach with both hands so tightly that the little glass beads are about to pop off.

“Jenny, I’d like you to meet my dad. Dad, this is Jen.”

“Is it Jen or Jenny?”

“Either one,” she says.

“Well, it’s good to finally meet. Sarah’s told me so much about you I feel I already know you.” I reach out. She releases the death grip on her purse and gives me a fleeting fingertip shake.

“Same here.” She nods and smiles and does a little nervous genuflection on the tall stiletto heels.

Take off the makeup, put her in tennis shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt, shrink her down ten years, and Jenny could pass for any in the battalion of Sarah’s “little friends.” This was the legion of noise, the siege of laughter and yelling that rampaged through the neighborhood with light sabers and squirt guns a decade ago. Even now sometimes when I see one of them, grown and tall, and I have to look at them to say hello, if someone asks me who they are, I will slip and refer to them as “one of Sarah’s little friends.” My daughter gets angry. She tells me not to say it, especially in front of them; her dad, the loose cannon. Of course I would not. But if I live to be a hundred and see them with grandchildren, in the crevices of whatever is left of memory, to me they will always be part of that lost and noisy brigade-“Sarah’s little friends.”

“So you guys are doing Mexican tonight, is that it?” I ask.

Jenny glances at Sarah and smiles. “And then I thought we’d go to a place downtown.”

“A club?” I ask.

“Yeah. Place called Ivy. They have good music.”

“Listen, you guys have a good time,” I tell them. We all head toward the door.

“I’ll be home by two.” Sarah kisses me on the cheek. “Don’t wait up.”

“You have your key?” I ask.

“Got it, Dad. And don’t worry. We’ll talk more tomorrow,” she says as they head to the car.

“Good night. Have fun.” I stand outside under the porch light watching as Jen’s Camry slides down the driveway and backs into the street. A few seconds later the taillights fade into the distance and disappear down the block.

He sat in a rickety ladder-back chair that wobbled and teetered just a little each time he leaned forward to type.

The room was small and dark. It resembled a closet more than an office. A single naked lightbulb hung from a wire dangling from the ceiling, just above his wispy strands of unkempt gray hair. The shiny crown at the back of his balding head gleamed with illumination, revealing only a subtle hint of the energy and purpose that blazed within.

The Old Weatherman could almost feel the political ground shifting beneath his feet as he pounded the letters on the computer’s keyboard. Outside, turbulent public attitudes turned like a weathervane in a cyclone. It was a sign of the times, a measure of people’s fears and their uncertainty about what lay ahead.

The window of opportunity was already beginning to close. He had only months for the entire train of events to play out. The doctors had told him that he would be dead by then. The cancer was already in his lungs and brain. No matter. He had time. He would set in motion the change that would take America into the future, a transformation of the system that no politician or political party could ever bring about; he would “breach the monastery.”

Back in the late sixties and early seventies, when they were young and stupid, they set off isolated bombs in federal buildings and courthouses around the country. Such a waste. None of it had any effect except to give Nixon the excuse to crack down on all forms of dissent. Other than to cause some localized terror and largely regional headlines, their actions failed entirely to bring about their ultimate goal, a permanent change to the system. One that would take the country in an entirely new direction, away from the corporations and the capitalist underpinnings that had taken America down the wrong path since its inception.