Around this time, Hilary arrived home from school with a poem she had written in class. Until Sept. 11, she had been a prolific writer. She had always kept several diaries going and even had one of her fifth-grade poems published in a national anthology. But whenever she tried to write about her father, she felt either blocked or distracted. At long last, the words had come:

My Dad
I see a face, a face of God
He's smiling down on me and my mom.
My dad is up there smiling too.
When his tower collapsed he was trapped
Inside a fiery inferno with nowhere to go
Except heaven.

Since she had accepted that her father was not returning, Hilary had been thinking more about him. She summoned memories of him—the time the previous August when he finally agreed to go boogie boarding, their trips to Philadelphia to hear the symphony orchestra—and replayed them in her head. And she thought a lot about what he was doing now. "In heaven he has everything he's ever wanted," she says. "There's no work and lots of golf, and I'm sure there's a beach. And he spends his time doing all the dangerous things he never let me do, like jumping up and down on a trampoline."

While privately Hilary was having what she calls "moments of realization about my dad," she was more conflicted about her public role. She and Ginny had gone on an all-expenses-paid trip sponsored by the rock band Creed to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. She met Brian Boitano and Senator Orrin Hatch and was even serenaded by Creed onstage. When NBC was looking to interview someone about the trip, Hilary's hand shot up. Back in Avon, she went from charity case to celebrity. In no time the whole school had seen the tape of her interview. "Everyone started sucking up to me and telling me how cool I was for getting to do these things and how they wish they'd gotten to go too," she says. They likened it to winning a radio call-in contest. The pangs of guilt returned: What was she doing profiting from her father's death? "They didn't understand the price," she said.

By spring she was out of synch with her friends. Not only could she still not be candid about the one thing on her mind, but while her world had disassembled, everyone else's was seamlessly pressing forward. Some girls had discovered boys, but she still saw herself as kind of a tomboy. One of her closest confidants was a 32-year-old FBI agent she had met at bereavement camp. Hilary had never before cared about social machinations because she had never had to. Now she was suddenly self-conscious and wondering why she had chosen this moment to worry about what other people thought.

Her peers were not the only ones who could make her feel ill at ease. Sanderson, her teacher, clearly had only the best intentions, but sometimes he was no better than the news anchors who kept harping on Sept. 11. During the last week of May, he brought a TV into class so that everyone could see the ceremony marking the completion of the ground-zero cleanup. Hilary wore her brave face and watched along with everyone else. Afterward, Sanderson asked if he could see her in the hallway. "You're my hero," he said. "You've just been so outstanding in front of your peers all year. I want to cry right now." So did she—out of utter embarrassment.

Hilary, who had always lived for school, could not wait for it to be over. She was counting on the fact that she could be anonymous among her summer friends, who lived elsewhere during the year and would not have heard about her dad. During the final week of the school year, the town of Avon gathered for its 22nd annual buffet dinner to reward young athletes. The affair holds little suspense—all the players get a certificate in every sport in which they compete—but Hilary was nonetheless excited and asked Ginny if she could wear a smudge of her glittery pink lip gloss. Sanderson, who also coaches Hilary's basketball team, took the stage and nervously riffled through a stack of note cards. He started off by talking about Lisa Beamer and the crash of Flight 93. Then he said, "Those passengers taught us all something about victory ... And this season, you girls have taught me something about victory. You never moaned or groaned or complained, and by continuing to fight on the court, you helped us all forget a little about what happened to this nation on Sept. 11."

Shortly afterward, Hilary told me she had resigned herself to a certain kind of grim fame: "I've heard about people having their 15 minutes. I think I've had a little more than 10, and I'm done with it. But I don't think it will stop. Maybe someday when I get older, get a job and move away from Avon, maybe at that point I won't be that different from anyone else."

Ginny steeled herself for the summer. Now that her numbness had lifted, she could finally focus on the mounds of paperwork that needed her attention. The deadline to apply for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a topic she does not discuss with Hilary, was weighing on her. But there was a flip side to emerging from her fog: she actually had to think and feel. The summer had always been her favorite part of the year. It was when she and George had met and fallen in love. And during July and August, they inhabited what Ginny calls an "expandable house," the weekend destination for every last cousin or friend seeking refuge from the sweltering city. Hilary would expect the same this year. Could they possibly be up to it?

On the first official day of summer, Ginny was hooking up the sprinkler system in her garden when she nearly tripped over the family's younger cat, Timothy, who had collapsed in a lifeless heap. Hilary was not around, so Ginny slid him into the cat carrier and sped off to the animal hospital. After rounds of tests, the vet could not say what precisely was wrong, only that the problem looked terminal. On the theory that "if [Hilary] couldn't control her dad's death, here was one she could," Ginny left the decision making in her daughter's hands. A five-night vigil at the hospital ensued. Hilary sat for hours patiently brushing Timothy and offering him tiny morsels of cat food on her finger. Finally the vet told her that the animal was not getting any better. Hilary thought for an hour and said that Timothy should be put to sleep.

"Do you want his body back?" asked the vet.

"I don't think so," said Hilary.

"What about his ashes?"

"No, I just want this all over."

Hilary said she would like to say goodbye. Fifteen minutes later, she emerged sobbing so hard she couldn't breathe. "It's unfair," she said that night for the first time since Sept. 11. "Why did this happen to me?"

Summer had always peaked over the Fourth of July. It was the one weekend when the whole family made a point of congregating in Avon at the same time. Ginny had an uncle who was a veteran of World War II, and every year, usually on July 5 or 6, the local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) marching band played on her front lawn. This year, after an FBI terrorism warning sent people scrambling for a refuge from Manhattan, relatives began arriving a day or two earlier than usual.

The guests declared a news blackout for the long weekend. If nothing else, they could filter out the overt mentions of Sept. 11. Yet George's absence was glaring at every turn. He had done the grilling, hung the flag, made sure the cooler was always stocked. The role of substitute patriarch fell to one of his fraternity brothers, George Eidam, who had come with his wife Marti and only child Mark, just six weeks older than Hilary. The Fourth went off without a hitch. Hilary spent an exhausting afternoon at the beach with George and Mark and could barely keep her eyes open for the fireworks.

The next day, Hilary crashed. On the beach, she was listless and wrapped herself up like a mummy in pink towels. She did not touch her chicken wrap and stormed home after lunch. The beach crowd fumbled for an explanation. Perhaps she was just tired. Or it was hormones. Or for once she was being a surly teenager. When Ginny later went up to the house, Hilary was in bed underneath the quilt, engrossed in a PBS documentary about dwarfs triumphing in the face of their handicap. "Hanging around with Uncle George and Mark just keeps reminding me that I don't have my dad," she said. That evening George took Ginny aside and offered to pack up and leave. "It will break my heart, but if it's too hard for Hilary, we'll go," he said. There was no doubt in Ginny's mind that they would stay.

Shortly before noon the next day, the VFW buses started rolling in. The band members, who in past years had always worn grubby T shirts and cutoffs, marched in their official uniforms, with muskets and all. After finishing a set of patriotic standards, the band made a special presentation in George's honor of one of the ornate, 3-ft.-high floral wreaths the VFW places on the tombs of soldiers.

As the summer ripened, Hilary and Ginny took some cautious steps into the rest of their lives. They have new routines, such as "girls' nights out" for pizza, and are talking about a trip to Ireland next year. They had their first big fight. (Ginny would not allow Hilary to take the surfing lessons her father had promised.) "My friends say this is progress, talking back like a typical teenager," sighs Ginny. For her part, Ginny is less jittery behind the wheel thanks to her new $3,000 global positioning system; an automated voice supplies step-by-step directions to anywhere she wants to travel. Yet press even the slightest bit on this scene, and the crater opens up. There are the occasional spooky reminders of George, like the solicitors who call for him or the monthly Verizon bill that arrives in his name. Hilary still spends some nights in her mother's bed. Though she talks about her father much more freely, she does so without making eye contact and often slipping her tortoiseshell sunglasses on. She rarely discusses her dad with her summer friends.

And she is still trying on different faces, still hoping for the right fit. On a Sunday in early August, Hilary and Ginny drive to another Comfort Zone Camp, where the topic of the day is the anniversary. The parents and the children divide into separate groups, but the feeling is the same in both rooms: we will not hang our grief on any timetable. The mothers spend a portion of the afternoon discussing wedding rings. About half, including Ginny, still have theirs on; a handful now also wear their husband's wedding band. The children worry about having to watch the towers fall during the television coverage of the anniversary. Hilary shares her anxiety with the group: "When people talk about it on TV, they know everything about it before you do, even though it's your dad and they have no connection to him."

A small media contingent is present, and during a break msnbc asks Hilary whether she would mind doing a quick interview. The reporter asks about her father and about how she has changed in the past year. Afterward, the crew members compliment her poise in front of the camera.

The segment is set to air Sept. 11. Hilary has decided not to watch.