After our son died, my wife found himin coincidences—sightings of hawks, mostly,at the oddest of times and places, and thenin a pair of redtails that took up residence,nesting in a larch above our barn, and howtheir low, frequent sweeps just a few feet above usbefore rising over our kitchen roofmade it seem as if they were looking in on us.In a way, it all made sense, our son so at homein high places—the edges of mountain trails,walking on a roof, or later, after he becamea house painter, at the top of a forty-foot ladder.So many mornings we woke to the redtails’jolting screeches and, even if I was a casual believer,their presence multiplied my lovefor the ordinary more every day. We never thought,of course, any of those hawks was our son—who would ever want that?—but, once,watching one rise and rise on a draft of air,I thought of Icarus soaring toward the sun—as if an old story could provide the distanceI needed—waxed and feathered, his arms winged,and remembered a babysitter’s frantic callto come home, immediately, after she’d foundour ten-year-old nearly forty feet upin an oak tree. I can almost hear him again, laughinghigh up in the sky, throned on a branch,his feet dangling, knowing nothing but the promiseof heights as he waved to me—and I must have looked very smallcalling up to him, staying calmso falsely as I pleaded with himto come down, to come down now.