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Ivy and Ruth crouched together at the bend in the stairs, listening.

They were supposed to be in bed, but when Aunt Vivian came, certain rules were relaxed.

When Aunt Vivian came, the conversations that took place after bedtime were much more interesting than the conversations that took place at the dinner table.

Partly because all the grown-ups had been drinking since midafternoon. Sometimes even since lunchtime.

When Aunt Vivian came, their father stood at the sideboard stirring drinks, while Aunt Vivian stirred the household.

Ivy never knew what she’d do or say next.

Nothing was a given when Aunt Vivian came except that all the grown-ups would have headaches in the morning and that the house would seem strangely quiet when she left.

Ivy leaned toward the stair railing, straining to hear as her father and Vivian told their stories. They swapped tales of crosswinds and unbalanced loads. Of lightning and funnel clouds. Of unruly passengers and inept ground crews.

The best way to hear the truth was to listen when no one thought you were around. At the dinner table, Ivy heard only that flying was safer than automobile travel. “And I should know,” said their father. His parents, Ivy’s Nan and Pop-pop, had died in a car crash just last year.

Her father flew commercial airliners to Atlanta and Kansas City and sometimes even Los Angeles.

The airlines never hired female pilots, though their father once announced, as if bestowing a precious gift not just upon Vivian but upon every female listening, that Vivian would have made a good one.

Her mother flew, too, but just as a hobby.

No one ever suggested that she might fly for a job.

No one suggested she might do anything for a job.

Aunt Vivian and their father had had plenty of practice telling their stories.

They knew just when to pause for her mother to laugh.

But tonight, George didn’t laugh much. She’d been snappish during dinner, and her mood only worsened as the evening went on.

Perhaps she’d grown tired of the older stories.

Ivy herself found the conversation less interesting than she’d anticipated.

Ice chimed against the sides of an empty glass. “I’ll have another, Tom,” said her mother.

Ivy had entertained herself throughout the afternoon and evening by privately tallying the number of drinks each grown-up had.

(Grandma Adele was losing. Badly. But George was on track to set a record.) It had recently occurred to Ivy that she herself would be a grown-up someday, so she needed to know things like how many scotches on the rocks you could have before you couldn’t stop giggling, or before it became necessary to lean against your friend in order to not topple over.

And how many more you could down before your eyelids fluttered and all you could do was stagger off to bed.

It was like a story problem. If four adults consume X cocktails between 3 p.m. and midnight, and Y equals the quantity of aspirin needed the following morning, solve for Y.

Also: solve for the number of times you’d shush your daughters the next day, and whether they’d have to get their own breakfast.

“Another?” said Tom. “You’ve already—”

“I don’t need you to tell me how many I’ve had. I’m not flying a plane tomorrow, am I? I’ll have as many as I want.”

Ivy heard the creak of chair leather as he stood. The plush carpet couldn’t fully muffle his tread as he moved to the credenza.

“Don’t skimp,” ordered George.

Three plinks meant three ice cubes tonged into the glass, the sound ringing through the thick silence in the living room. Ivy held her breath and stared at Ruth, who pressed her own lips tightly together. Neither of them wanted their presence on the stairs to be detected.

“Here you go,” said Tom. A pause, during which her mother was supposed to say thank you but didn’t. Then the leather of her father’s chair complained again, and he said, “Now where was I?” He took up his story, and Ivy and her sister breathed again.

“Let’s count how many times they slur their words,” said Ivy.

“Shh,” hissed Ruth, widening her eyes.

“They can’t hear a thing now. And even if they did—” She made a loose C with one hand and tilted it toward her mouth.

“Shhhhh!” insisted Ruth.

“Would’ve been different if Vivian’d been at the controls with me,” said her father in the overly cheery voice he used when he and her mother had recently fought.

The thunk of a glass being set down on a wooden table. Someone wasn’t using a coaster. “How?” insisted George. “How would it possibly have been different?”

“Georgie,” said their father.

“You managed fine. What’s his name, the copilot, Stevens. He managed fine too.”

“Georgie, all I’m saying is she’s a damn good pilot. You know that yourself.”

“Yes, and I don’t need to be reminded of it every goddamned night.”

“Georgeanne,” said Grandma Adele. “Language.”

“One more, Tom.”

“I just gave you—”

“A double this time.” Ivy’s shoulders jumped at her mother’s tone.

The one she used when she’d reached the absolute limit of her patience, when swift punishment was certain to follow any further nonsense from her daughters.

A tone even Ivy knew better than to challenge.

She’d never heard her mother use it with her father.

His lack of familiarity with it was probably why he dared to say, “I wouldn’t if I were you. You’ll regret it in the morning.”

“Don’t you lecture me. Especially about regret.”

“George,” said Aunt Vivian, her voice shrill and tight. “I need a cig. Join me outside?”

“And don’t try to get me out of my house either. It’s the one place I belong , after all.”

“I just thought—”

“But that’s just it. You don’t think. Neither of you ever think. And I’m sick of hearing these stories. Over and over and over,” said their mother. Her voice quavered. “You have no idea how sick of them I am.”

“You’re right, George,” said Aunt Vivian.

“We’re sorry. We get carried away. We’ll talk about something else now.

Tell me what’s going on with the girls.” Ivy pressed up against the banister, eager to hear what her mother would say about her.

Eager to compare it to her real life, and the increasing number of secrets she kept from her.

“You’ve seen them. You’ll see them again tomorrow. You can ask them yourself.” This was disappointing. Shouldn’t her mother want to talk about her? Wasn’t it actually her job?

“George, what’s gotten into you?” It was a warning, not a question, not really, from her father.

“Not that you care about them,” George said, ignoring Tom and talking to Aunt Vivian. “Not the way you care about your precious planes.”

“If I were you,” said Grandma Adele, “I’d take two aspirin and take myself to bed.”

“That’s not true,” said Vivian. She said it so quietly Ivy almost didn’t catch it. “You know that’s not true. You know I love her—them.”

“Easy to love from up so high,” said George. “Easy to love from fifteen thousand feet. Where’s my drink, Tom?”

“You’ve had enough,” he said.

“I think we should talk about something else now, George.” Ivy heard something new in Aunt Vivian’s voice. After a beat, she recognized it as panic.

“Georgeanne,” said Grandma Adele. “Bedtime.”

“I’m raising her. As my very own. And you—you come into my house, and I cook for you, and I wait—I wait months for your letters, your calls, months for you to ask.

Not about her—I know you care about her, I do.

But you never ask about me. And I have to listen to all these stories. After I gave up everything .”

Their mother was crying now, which was not unheard of, but still alarming. Aunt Vivian started crying too. “Oh God, George, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but stop. You have to stop now.”

“What are you saying?” asked their father, panic in his voice.

“I love them both the same,” said their mother. “Both exactly the same.”

“Georgeanne! Hush right now!” said Grandma Adele.

“I can’t imagine not having them. Both of them. But some days I wish you had taken them and I was—” Their mother had stopped crying. Her voice had become steady and bitter.

Ivy wanted to be alone. She wanted Ruth tucked safely in bed while she served as the only witness to the terrible thing happening in the living room.

How much easier to be the one in sole possession of this story, the one reporting it to an innocent listener.

How much easier to be the one filing off the sharp and dangerous edges, smoothing it down to something merely amusing.

“What the hell are you saying?” demanded their father. His voice was breaking, which was absolutely unheard of and terribly alarming. “Stop saying this! Stop it, now!”

The living room fell silent, and Ivy, in the dark, at the bend in the stairs, pretended Ruth wasn’t there as she waited for someone to say something that would make everything right again.

“Adele,” said their father, “what does she mean?”

Grandma Adele said nothing.

“Are you saying—which one is ours?”

“They’re both ours,” said their mother.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean, goddamn it. Twelve years. Twelve years, George? And this is how you tell me?”

“It doesn’t change anything,” said Grandma Adele. “Not a thing. And no one is to say one word, not one single word to those girls. Ever. It would break their hearts.”