enough for depilation. Hal that morning two weeks
ago, setting out to get his Vocational Assignment Certificate....

That's when I stopped remembering.

It had been five years after our marriage before they let us start a
child: some question about Lucy's uncle and my grandmother. Most parents
aren't as old as we are when they get the news and usually have other
children left, so it isn't so bad.

* * * * *

When we got home, Lucy still was silent. She took off her scarf and
cloak and put them away, and then she pushed the button for dinner
without even asking me what I wanted. I noticed, though, that she was
ordering all the things I like. We both had the day off, of course, to
go and say good-by to Hal--Lucy is a technician at Hydroponics Center.

I felt awkward and clumsy. Her ways are so different from mine; I
explode and then it's over--just a sore place where it hurts if I touch
it. Lucy never explodes, but I knew the sore place would be there
forever, and getting worse instead of better.

We ate dinner in silence, though neither of us felt hungry, and had the
table cleared. Then it was nearly 19 o'clock and I had to speak.

"The takeoff will be at 19:10," I said. "Want me to tune in now? Last
year, when Mutro was Solar President, he gave a good speech before the
kids left."

"Don't turn it on at all!" she said sharply. Then, in a softer voice,
she added: "Of course, Frank, turn it on whenever you like. I'll just go
to my room and open the soundproofing."

There were still no tears in her eyes.

I thought of a thousand things to say: Don't you want to catch a glimpse
of Hal in the crowd going up the ramp? Mightn't they let the kids wave a
last farewell to their folks listening and watching in? Mightn't
something in the President's speech make us feel a little better?

But I heard myself saying, "Never mind, Lucy. Don't go. I'll leave the
thing off."

I didn't want to be alone. I wanted Lucy there with me.

So we sat out the whole time of the visicast, side by side on the
window-couch, holding hands. I'll say this for the neighbors--they must
all have known, for Hal was the first to be selected from Homefield in
nearly 40 years, and the newscast must have announced it over and over,
but not a single person on the whole 62 floors of the house butted in on
us. Not even that snoopy student from Venus in 47-14, who's always
dropping in on other tenants and taking notes on "