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Ivy’s moodiness aside, George enjoyed the lunch. And the flight was beautiful. Clear skies. Not a single air pocket. Smooth sailing out and back and a textbook landing to boot. Maybe, she thought as the Cessna touched down, her daughters would fly with her again soon.

“Finally,” muttered Ivy as they taxied toward the hangar. George glanced back at her passengers. Ruth looked a bit green. Maybe her tuna salad had been off. Ivy looked sour, but that was hardly unusual.

They disembarked, George climbing down last. The girls veered off, skirting a group gathered near another private plane, one George didn’t recognize. She peered over, wondering who owned it.

In a low, tight voice, Vivian said, “I think that’s Elliot.”

“Oh, I recognize her from your graduation,” said Adele. She started toward the group, calling out, “Hello!”

Ruth and Ivy glanced at one another in dismay. As if it would kill them to be pleasant for five minutes. “Come on, girls,” said George.

She hugged Elliot, noting the expensive drape and cut of her suit, the cream-colored leather gloves that looked as if they’d been sewn specifically for her hands, the gin-scented cloud emanating from her.

“These are my girls, and maybe you remember my mother, Adele, from graduation,” George said to Joyce. “Ruth and Ivy, this is Joyce Elliot. She flew with us in the WASP.”

“Joyce Quigley now,” said Joyce, and George’s stomach dropped. Because Quigley knew everything, which meant Elliot knew at least some of everything, and Elliot had obviously been drinking since well before lunchtime.

“Bob transferred to Liberty not long after you left there, Viv. He always said you’d be fine, that I shouldn’t worry. Even though you never sent a letter—not one!”

Vivian stammered, but Joyce wasn’t done. “He explained everything,” she said. “ Everything. ” George grabbed both girls by the hand and pivoted away from the group, ready to run.

The movement drew Joyce’s gaze. She eyed one girl and then the other. “Well! George and Viv always looked like twins, and so do you.”

“Because they are twins,” said George.

“Not a speck of their father in either of them, is there?” Joyce went on.

She reached for Vivian’s hand. “I know what George has been busy with all these years, but what about you, Viv?” Then the exuberance went out of her voice, and she said, “I have thought about you so often. Thank goodness for Bob, helping you out in your time of need. He always said you’d be fine.

And here you are. And my, you do look fine. So elegant.”

Vivian stood as if frozen, clutching Joyce’s gloved hand. Her jaw worked, but she uttered no words.

“Maybe if I’d given up my boys—we have three!—I’d look as good as you do.” Joyce cackled so hard, she wobbled on her kitten heels. Ivy stared at her with ferocious curiosity.

George tugged her girls away. “We have to head home. Mother can’t be out long these days.” This produced a snort from Ivy, but Adele obligingly slumped her shoulders.

“I’ll say hello to Bob for you,” Joyce shouted after them, but George, dragging Ruth and Ivy to the car, barely heard her.

Once they were safely locked in the sedan, she glanced to her right. Adele looked grim. She glanced in the rearview mirror. Vivian looked shell shocked—Ruth, queasy. But Ivy was on full alert. “What was she talking about?” asked Ivy.

“She was drunk,” said George. “I can’t stand being around drunk people.”

“Well, that is just not true,” said Ivy. “Especially when Vivian’s here. Speaking of Vivian.”

“Enough,” snapped Adele. “Ivy, that’s enough. No one wants to hear another word about Joyce. The poor woman. She has no idea what she’s saying.”

Ivy muttered that Joyce knew perfectly well what she was saying, and then fell silent.

George fixed her eyes on the road ahead.

There’d been a stretch, years ago, when the girls—Ivy leading, Ruth slouched behind her—had asked a lot of questions.

The kind that made George fear they’d discovered something.

But that was ridiculous. Neither she nor Vivian nor Tom had ever said a word to them.

Eventually they’d stopped pestering, and George had assumed they’d gotten past whatever had stirred them up.

She should have known better. Ivy never let anything go.

Back at the house, Vivian retreated to the guest room to pack. “Maybe they’ll forget about it,” she whispered as she hugged George goodbye.

“Not likely,” George whispered back.

She steeled herself for more questions from Ivy. But Ivy never mentioned Joyce again. She stopped talking much at all.

She also stopped running around with boys. She appeared to be studying, and not just her French. She set and cleared the table and did her chores without complaint.

And then, one day, she disappeared.