David E. Rivers

Searching for an Answer
At a movie party in TriBeCa 18 years ago, Ricky Vider Rivers met her future husband, David, a newcomer to New York by way of Massachusetts. Within three weeks, the two had moved in; they'd been together since.

"He was my soul mate, my best friend, my everything," said Mrs. Rivers, a fashion editor. "And I can't believe we won't see him again."

Mr. Rivers, 40, was editorial director at Risk Waters Group, a financial technology company that was sponsoring a conference at Windows on The World on Sept. 11. After the first plane hit, Mr. Rivers called his wife, who had forgotten that he was in the building. "I'm just hoping he was calm in that storm, standing there on the top of the building," she said.

Last weekend, the family held a memorial service for Mr. Rivers on Martha's Vineyard, a treasured place where he spent summers as a boy and later as a husband and father. "We put a box in the ground with a key to the beach in it," Mrs. Rivers said. "Because that's all we have left."

She continued: "Our son James, who is 5 years old, asks 'Why did Daddy have to be there that day?' And I can't answer him."