It was now eight years since that historic flight to Australia, eight years since Irene and Sam had sat together under the coolibah tree; six years since Irene had set a coast-to-coast record flying from New York to Los Angeles in her own Rofrano Centauri and then flown solo from Boston to Paris a month later; five years since she had stumbled into a love affair with her business manager, George Morrow, and accepted his marriage proposal with certain conditions. She had been George’s wife for four years, and in that time she had set countless records for airspeed and endurance and distance, had flown solo to various points around the world, had circumnavigated the globe with a copilot and a navigator, had cracked up more times than she could count and been hospitalized in eleven of those instances, had gone on eight lecture tours and made one thousand six hundred and fourteen speeches, had designed her own clothing line, had appeared on a hundred and twelve magazine covers and in six motion pictures.

In all that time she had seen Sam Mallory exactly four times. The last time was seven months ago, at a restaurant in Burbank. Irene was having dinner with George and the Rofranos; Sam was there with a film actress in a sequined dress. They saw each other at exactly the same moment, as Irene and George walked past his table to join the Rofranos at the back of the restaurant, and the sight of his horrified face still wounded her. Later he’d come over to say hello, and it was clear he’d had a drink or two to fortify himself. He laughed and joked harshly, and he introduced the film actress, who was beautiful beyond description and didn’t seem to know the history of Sam and Irene. She just appeared girlishly starstruck to meet the legendary aviatrix and babbled on about how scared she was to fly in an airplane, how brave Irene must be. Irene replied graciously, without meeting Sam’s eyes once. She watched him walk away though, a little unsteady, the actress’s arm looped through his. What little she’d seen of his face seemed gaunt. Those ravishing good looks had been hollowed out by misery.

“Poor fellow,” said George. “A wife like his.”

Octavian said, “Not anymore. They called it quits a year or two ago, didn’t you hear?”

Under the table, Sophie had kicked him, and he’d cleared his throat and changed the subject. But it didn’t matter. Irene had already heard that news. Of course she had.