"There. A free woman."

Kittredge laughed. "You two have been dragging out your divorce longer than I was married. What are you two still haggling over, anyway?"

She sank back in her chair, suddenly weary. "Everything. I admit it, I haven't been reasonable either. A few weeks ago, we tried to sit down and make a list of all our possessions. What I want, what he wants. We promised ourselves we were going to be civilized about it. Two calm and mature adults. Well, by the time we got halfway down the list, it was out-and-out war. Take no prisoners." She sighed. In truth, that was the way she and Jack had always been. Equally obstinate, fiercely passionate. Whether in love or at war, the sparks were always flying between them.

"There was only one thing we could both agree on," she said. "I get to keep the cat."

"Lucky you." She looked at him. "Do you ever have any regrets?"

"You mean about my divorce? Never." Though his answer was flatly unequivocal, his gaze had dropped, as though he was trying to hide a truth they both knew, he was still mourning the failure his marriage.

Even a man fearless enough to strap himself atop millions of pounds of explosive fuel could suffer from an ordinary of loneliness.

"This is the problem, you see. I've finally figured it out," he said.

"Civilians don't understand us because they can't share the dream. The only ones who'll stay married to an astronaut are the saints and the martyrs. Or the ones who just don't give a shit whether we live or die."

He gave a bitter laugh. "Bonnie, she no martyr. And she sure as hell didn't understand the dream."

Emma stared down at her wedding ring, gleaming on the table.

"Jack understands it," she said softly. "It was his dream too. That's what ruined it for us, you know. That I'm going up and he can't. That he's the one left behind."