It was a fin — the aft one, glued at about four degrees off, which he had known about in March and had decided was probably fine.

He fixed it on the tailgate of my car with a scalpel and some glue, and it took him twenty-five minutes and he would not let me do any of it, and the second launch went up about seven hundred feet and the chute came out and the whole field of nine people made the noise people make, and he ran.

I have a photograph of that.

Jessi took it and sent it to me that evening with no message.