Chapter 13: Carol, 2019 — Flashback

The coffee went cold the way it always did when neither of them was paying attention to it.

Marcus noticed this at 7:14 AM on a Tuesday in October, standing at the kitchen counter in the particular flat light that came through the east window before the sun cleared the Sandias, and he thought: I should have made less. He thought this every time. He never made less.

Carol was at the table in partial uniform — the lower half, the dark tactical pants she wore when the full suit was impractical for domestic space, the navy pullover that was hers but that had always looked like his. Her hair was pulled back with the rubber band she kept on her wrist. Not the civilian one she used for Sunday mornings. The operational one. He knew the difference. He had always known the difference.