Mrs. Sudbury hadn't heard about Danny O'Reilly's accident until more than a week after it happened. She got the details from Chloe, Danny's wife. After a number of stops and starts, wails, and other clicks, pings, and pops, the widow was able to convey what had happened to her lovely husband. Danny had left Montague Street bleary eyed. He'd called his wife right as he was taking off to go to the job for that day. He was angry at the world for its color blindness, she told Mrs. Sudbury. So angry that in the end he became color blind himself. At approximately 9:22 that morning, minutes after the seven men and Mrs. O'Neill started their meeting, just as Mrs. Sudbury disengaged herself from her bedroom window, Danny's truck entered the intersection of Commonwealth and Massachusetts and was side swiped by a school bus. From what witnesses said, Danny failed to stop for the bright red light and as a result, a brighter yellow school bus rammed into him, killing him instantly.

Red light. Yellow school bus. Orange Chevy truck.

Though she tried to listen to Chloe, and though the sound of all that mucus raining down on the phone slightly turned her stomach, Mrs. Sudbury realized that Danny was speaking to her from the grave. Danny's death, in addition to all the other things it meant for his own loved ones, was also a sign to her. There was logic in the world. You had to pay attention to see the patterns. You couldn't let anger or grief get in the way. She almost said as much to Chloe, but then thought better of it. She forced herself to listen to the widow for a few more minutes - it was only decent. But she also used the time to examine her life.

Before marrying Randall Sudbury, famous economist, expert on corporate efficiency and its role in post-industrial economies, before she became half of the Rachel and Randall show, before all of that she'd had a life of her own. She wasn't one to be a symbol, though her husband's bookish friends seemed to think differently. "Rachel and Randall: symmetrical and alliterative, too," they chuckled. She never thought that was funny. She was not symmetrical. She thought of herself as being made from the stuff that leaders are made from: unique, unusual, not easily fit into preexisting categories. She'd been a dancer before. Not a great one, but good enough. Now what was she? She was eye candy for eggheads. Eye candy that seemed to be souring as far as her husband was concerned.

She turned to look at the giant bed she'd made her husband buy her, a king-sized canopy made from pernambucco wood, and her eye fell on her husband's pristine side of the bed: the 700-count sheets were completely smooth, the down pillows puffed up into marshmellowy perfection. "It was just more efficient," was what he'd said when he didn't come to bed that first night more than two months before. "With the book, I'm crazy right now, and if an idea hits me in the middle of the night, I want to be ready to go - I just don't want to bother you," he added by way of making her feel better.

But his comments did not make Rachel feel any better.

She looked outside her window. She could see her neighbor standing in front of her study. She was going to have to visit that awful place and talk with that awful woman, but that would come later. First, she had to face her husband. She'd been putting off the conversation for weeks, and now, with the news of Danny's death, she knew it was time to act.

With the coffee dripping steadily into her stainless steel thermos, which she'd been told was created by the same engineers who designed the BMW she had parked in the garage, she went over her list of questions. Her husband was a late riser and as she enjoyed her coffee, she took the time to organize. If she'd learned anything in the five years she was married to Randall Sudbury, the Houston Stevens Professor of Economic Theory, it was the need to present arguments logically and clearly. Speaking off the cuff - that would only confuse her husband, and worse, make him sullen and defensive. Then he would accuse her of being hysterical. Armed with bullet-point logic, he'd shoot her confidence down, and she would be too shy to ask for clarification for fear of seeming stupid. She had no advanced degree, after all - an argument her husband used often.

"You're up early today," Randall said as he darted in and out of the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee.

"Can we talk, Randy?" She willed herself to sound calm, avoiding any trace of complaint.

"Of course," he said as he tied his tie in front of the mirror in the hallway. "What is it?"

"Here, come sit by me."

"Can't you just talk to me while I get myself together? I'm running late already."

"Well, are you going to be home early tonight?" she asked. "I guess I can wait." She'd slipped into a whining voice that she immediately regretted.

"Actually, tonight I'm getting in late as well. Johnson just got pregnant and she's going on leave in the fall. Now we're scrambling to fill her classes."

"Cindy's pregnant? That's good." She didn't let herself sound too excited since she knew her husband's feelings about children.

"It's anything but good."

"Is she ok?"

"Yes, yes, yes, Cindy Johnson is fine," he said walking back into the kitchen. The unnaturally deep-set wrinkles that covered his face looked deeper than usual, which meant he felt he was having to explain the obvious.

"Randall, are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"I have no idea what you think I'm saying, Rachel, but I do know I'm late. I have to go." He took a gulp of his coffee and ran out the door with Rachel following close behind. She was trying to decide whether she should let things go again or do something else. She wondered what Danny would have done. And while she did so, her husband vanished down the block until she realized she no longer had an option.

"Morning, Rachel," she heard her next door neighbor call out. With her robe tied around her tightly and her German-engineered mug of coffee in hand, she turned away and pretended she didn't hear him. She wasn't in the mood to be sociable, and her neighbor bothered her. Just as she was turning to go back inside, she noticed that beyond the slick spot of oil Danny O'Reilly's truck had left behind the week before, a tall blond man was walking up the path to Mrs. O'Neill's house. He was one of her neighbor's new boarders. He wore a baseball cap. He was muscular, square-jawed. Solidly built. She liked looking at him.

She waited for the man to get in the house, completely forgetting the lech of a neighbor who was probably still behind her looking at her butt. Without realizing it, she started walking across the street to see if she could get a better look at the young man. Through the giant front window of the awful brown house that she hated almost as much as Danny O'Reilly did, Mrs. Sudbury could see Mrs. O'Neill seated, talking to another one of the men she'd hired. Why, Rachel Sudbury asked herself, was her ancient neighbor bringing men into the house? The old lady didn't seem to like anyone.

And then, for a moment, the briefest moment of weakness, she let herself wonder why it was that she'd never been invited.

A buzzing sound, an alarm of sorts, filled her ears. A bit more intense and higher in pitch than the one on her bedside table, it was clearly telling her to turn back toward her house, to take care of her own life. She had to do it, if for no other reason than to honor her color-loving comrade's memory. But she resisted. She was surrounded by the most beautiful colors on a block of beautiful homes, but like Danny O'Reilly, she'd developed her own version of color blindness. As a result, she stared at the brown house, ignoring the rest.