“Mark my words,” Franklin said, “they’ll figure out exactly what happened. They’ll call in every recovery vessel in the world. C-130s, search-and-rescue helicopters, mini-subs – the works. They’ll collect every scrap. Before the year is over they’ll reconstruct the whole thing in a hangar at the Cape.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Marion said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

“Piece by piece,” he continued. “By the time they’re finished you could buckle Christa McAuliffe back into her seat.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” she said.

“Mark my words. That’s how these things are done.”

There was a time when Marion hung on his every pronouncement. She’d regularly told her parents that she was lucky to have married such a sensible man. When they bought their first car he disputed each sticker item so vigorously that the salesman finally threw up his hands and reduced the price by three hundred dollars, throwing in floor mats and an anti-rust treatment to boot.

Now Franklin felt her looking around the apartment, at the threadbare, consignment-shop couch, the La-Z-Boy recliner, the coffee table made from an old door on cinder blocks, the large, cloudy fish tank against the wall. She sniffed deeply and shuddered.

“I ran into Susie Park at the mall,” she said.

His gaze stayed on the screen. “Susie Park,” he said.

She sighed. “The fish lady. That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

The fish lady. Susie Park was the Korean woman who came every three weeks to clean the aquarium. They rarely saw or spoke to one another. She let herself in when he was at the library. If he remembered she was coming, he left a check taped to the glass.

“She says she won’t come again until you pay her. She says you haven’t left a check the last two times.”