So she began to pack his things, trying to separate what her son might want from what John's brother might want from what the Salvation Army might want. In the basement, she taped his cross-country skis together, packed his squash rackets, and wondered why he had never thrown out his old jogging sneakers. She left his scuba tanks in the corner because they were too heavy to lift.

And when she looked back at all those pairs of jogging sneakers, tattered testimony of the three miles he had run every day of their marriage, except during the honeymoon, it came to her with a jarring shock.

"Heart gave out. No way. No way. No way."

John did not smoke, rarely drank, exercised daily, watched his diet, and no one in his family had ever suffered heart disease.

"No way," she said again, and she was suddenly very excited as though by establishing this fact conclusively, it would in some way bring him back.

She forced herself to wait until nine-thirty in the morning before phoning the family physician. The doctor's receptionist-nurse answered, and she made an appointment for that day. She only needed five minutes, she said. Actually, she needed less.

"John's heart was in good shape, wasn't it, doctor?" she asked before he could offer his sympathy.

"Well, yes. For a man of his age, his heart was functioning well. He took care of himself properly."

"Should his heart have failed on the operating table?"

"Well, Mrs. Boulder, an operation puts an incredible strain on the body."

"Should it have failed?"

"Robler has some of the finest surgical teams in the country, Mrs. Boulder. Many of the nation's highest officials go there. If there were any way for them to save your husband…"

"He shouldn't have died of a heart failure, should he, doctor? Tell me. You're our family physician."

"Mrs. Boulder, I sent my own daughter to the Robler Clinic."