“Forget it,” she said and then, inevitably, “I make more than you.” She looked again at the tank and its amber water, the scum on the inside of the glass. She shook her head and began to take off her jacket. “But a week is too long to wait.”

“I can take care of it,” Franklin said. He was tilting his head toward the television, where announcers now discussed how one of the solid rocket boosters had broken free and continued briefly to fly, fuel burning from its base like a roman candle.

“Yes, but you won’t,” she said and disappeared into the kitchen. The screen zoomed in on the renegade booster, and Franklin sat again to watch, but Marion returned quickly. “I don’t have time for this,” she said. “For God’s sake, help me.” She had rolled her blouse sleeves above her elbows and carried the cleaning hose, bucket, and a packet of green algae pads he kept under the sink.

Franklin fetched a step stool from the closet. She handed him a pad, and he also rolled up his sleeves and began to clean the inside of the glass. She mounted the stool and did the same. The slime and residue from their scrubbing clouded the water even further, before it settled into the white gravel below. Mr. Gills and his companions darted from side to side.

In ten minutes the glass was clean, and Marion put the wide end of the transparent hose into the tank and the narrow end to her mouth and sucked until water began to siphon into the tube. She quickly shoved the receiving hose into the gravel, but doing so required her to stand on her tiptoes, and she nearly lost her balance on the stool.

She kicked off her shoes. “Hold on to me,” she said, and Franklin put his hands around her waist. The heels of his hands rested on the familiar swell of her hips, and he watched the arching of her bare feet and the flexing of her calves as she leaned over the water. She used the hose to agitate the gravel, so excreta and offal and uneaten fish food swirled upward in a mist of scum and muck. The foul stuff traveled through the tube