“Well, not exactly destitute,” John said pedantically. This was true, monetarily speaking. The judge or arbitrator had taken the attorney’s tallying up of what Maryellen would have earned in twenty-six years of TWA salaries had she not moved every one to four years in support of Ted’s career, while also raising his children. Incredibly, Ted’s attorney’s returned fire with charts showing that due to airline deregulation and Carl Icahn’s restructuring of TWA, which led to furloughs and bankruptcy following the explosion of Flight 800, Maryellen would have earned much less, had she retained her job at all. “I’m surprised the sonofabitch didn’t try to argue that I would have been on Flight 800,” Maryellen had told Bunny bitterly. The judge had taken the numbers and performed his own calculations and named a monthly sum that Ted was obliged to pay. This was Maryellen’s income, with which she could live and make payments on the home equity loan that had gotten her through the first years.