Sam still had his old surfboard, and Irene liked to take it out in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to rise, while Sam watched anxiously from the terrace. He was worried because of her arm, but he didn’t say so. She would climb back up the path, carrying the heavy board on her shoulder, grinning and wet and shivering, and she would put the board away and straddle his lap and kiss him. He liked to taste the salt water on her skin, to nuzzle her dripping hair. He told her to be careful not to get his cast all wet, and she said she would be very careful.

But they never were.

After they made love and Irene showered off all the salt water and washed her hair clean, she would kiss Sam good-bye and put on a scarf and sunglasses so she could buy groceries without being recognized. She brought back lots of vegetables and fruit and meat, in order to build up his strength. “You’re too thin,” she told him. “You need someone to look after you, not these giddy starlets who only love their own reflections in the mirror.”

He would pull her back on his lap and ask what she loved.

“You,” she said. “Flying. That’s all.”

They were never careful, not once. They made love recklessly, as often as they could because of so much lost time, and when they weren’t making love they lay on the rug together, arguing about the future, while Sandy curled in the armchair and watched them with sleepy, predatory eyes. Sam was still determined to go to Spain, as soon as the cast was off. Irene wanted him to fly with her instead. Fly around the world, the way they had talked about eight years ago.

“I told you, I’m done with stunts,” he said.

“It’s not a stunt. We’d be lengthening the horizon of human possibility. Pushing the boundaries of aviation.”

“Save it for the speeches, Irene. You’re a decade out of date. Who cares about that kind of thing when the whole world’s in the middle of a depression, when villages are getting bombed?”

“There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can still show people what airplanes can do, that air travel is the future.”

“They already know that. I can’t show them anything they haven’t seen with their own two eyes.” He rolled on his side and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Don’t keep risking that sweet life of yours for this nonsense. Come with me instead.”

“Oh, and that’s not risking my life?”

“I’m not talking about fighting. I’ve shot down enough airplanes, God knows. I’ll be training pilots, that’s all. Flying in food and medicine, maybe, flying out the injured. Now that’s some good an airplane can do.”

“But won’t the other side try to shoot you down?”

“They won’t catch me. They won’t catch you, either. You’re a terrific pilot. Come with me. Leave this show behind you.”