It was Dr. Lai who found Mrs. Xin's body. When he told her "Qingmei is dead," Tubby wondered a moment whether she had died in congress with one of her immemorious young lovers, a passing that some women would find valorous but at which Mrs. Xin, Tubby was sure, would have wrinkled her nose in distaste.

It had been nothing of the kind, of course. During her sleep, Mrs. Xin had suffered an intraparenchymal hemorrhage near the brainstem, which had damaged the tenth cranial nerve and shut down her cardiac and respiratory functions almost immediately. Her death had been quiet, swift, and painless. Not thinking, Tubby asked Dr. Lai whether the autopsy had found any brain damage. The look he gave her was difficult to describe.

There had been four unopened bottles of blood pressure pills in Mrs. Xin's purse. Could the dreamgame have made her forget? But Tubby knew that those pills had sexual side effects in men. Maybe it was the same for women. She'd kept them in her purse, too, not her medicine cabinet, where they could have been found. Maybe there were other side effects Mrs. Xin hadn't liked.

She hadn't seen Mr. Xin in a long time. He had Parkinson's and didn't say much, and what he did say was in English or Cantonese. "I very sorry," Tubby said to him in English at the funeral.

"I didn't want to live longer than her," said Mr. Xin, also in English. "But I'm glad she was happy and had friends."

Tubby looked over at the group she thought of as Mrs. Xin's "friends," the knot of rocket scientists standing off to themselves—except for two of them, Mr. Chen and Mr. Adderly, who were in wheelchairs. Tubby had been afraid they'd break into their usual conversations about group theory and programming languages, but the graveyard and funeral blacks seemed to serve as a constant reminder of the circumstances. Dr. Ramachandran was not present.

Mr. Xin smiled, not without pain, when Tubby looked over at the rocket scientists. "She was a loving woman," he said deliberately, "and she came back to see me every night."

"She was a good friend," said Tubby. She wanted to say more, but she could not find the words, and Mr. Xin seemed satisfied.