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She rarely saw Ivy in her Donut Dolly uniform.

Mostly she dressed in fatigues. Perhaps, thought Ruth, the Donut Dollies received a surprising number of days off.

Maybe they needed it, because how could you keep up the soldiers’ morale if you didn’t tend to your own?

She could tell already that tending to one’s own morale in country would be tough.

She also never saw Ivy drive a jeep again.

Like the other Donut Dollies, Ivy was driven or choppered where she needed to go.

It occurred to Ruth only much later that Ivy’s appearance at Long Binh had been no accident.

That Ivy, by driving that jeep to pick her up, was telling her something.

She’d known Ruth would arrive at Long Binh that day, and she’d known—maybe she had even arranged it—that Ruth would be stationed at Cu Chi.

Over the next few weeks, though Ruth saw little of her sister, it became clear that Ivy knew things.

And people. She had access to resources.

The nurses would let Ivy know when they ran low on IV tubing or compression bandages or even tampons, which the soldiers often requisitioned to clean their weapons.

And in a few days, those things would appear.

Not delivered by Ivy, but, everyone knew, thanks to her ability to speak the right words to the right people.

Occasionally, Ruth spotted her sister wearing her pale-blue dress, boarding a Huey with the other Donut Dollies—heading out into the field or to another base with their board games and their Autoharp, with their bright smiles and their conversational aptitude.

Once she saw her in a ruby-red cocktail dress, picking her way toward a Huey in a pair of strappy high heels. Ruth’s curiosity got the better of her, and she went and rapped on the door of the Donut Dollies’ hooch. “Anyone seen Shaw?”

“Based on her wardrobe,” Patty Dubroski offered, “I’m guessing Saigon.” Patty’s thick eyeliner had smeared. No, Ruth realized, those were just dark circles beneath her eyes.

“Embassy party,” confirmed Jean Poltraine. She, too, looked exhausted. They all did.

“Guess that’s why she wasn’t with us in the field today,” said Patty. “All that primping takes time.”

Ruth fought the urge to defend her sister. But Ivy lived with these women. She could fight her own battles.

Jean explained that their group had come under fire as they lifted off.

When they looked down, the soldiers, who had been joking and telling stories moments before, now grim faced, picked up their guns.

Ruth had been on duty when the medevac copter came in that afternoon.

Two of those GIs had died, and a third looked likely to follow.

How could you justify a red cocktail dress, strappy heels, and an embassy party in the face of all that?

“She’ll get us some booze at least,” said Jean. “She always comes home from these things with some booze. Booze and tampons.”

“Did you want us to give her a message? She’s usually not back for a couple of days when she goes down to Saigon.”

“Yeah, if you’re low on supplies, you should have caught her earlier.”

“No message. No need to even tell her I stopped by.” Though they would, naturally.

Then Ivy would know Ruth had been curious.

And Ruth didn’t want Ivy thinking she was curious.

Here they were, living in hooches not twenty-five yards from one another, and there might as well have been half a world between them still.

She felt just as disconnected from her sister as she had after Ivy ran away.

The only difference was the occasional glimpse Ruth got of her, the occasional snatch of conversation.

Otherwise, Ivy remained opaque, impenetrable.

The nurses protected Ivy. Everyone, it seemed, protected her.

“Shaw?” said Stanich the one time Ruth dared to probe.

“I don’t know who she is, but I know this: she’s no Donut Dolly.

She told me she’s your sister.” Stanich cocked an eyebrow, waiting for Ruth’s denial.

Ruth felt her cheeks pinking with warmth.

“That’s true,” she admitted. “Yes. We’re sisters.”

“I see the resemblance. Why does she go by Shaw? She doesn’t wear a ring. Is she married?”

It would be just like Ivy to get married and not tell anyone about it. “Not that I know of,” she said, hoping Stanich didn’t probe any further. But Stanich apparently knew a wall when presented with one, and let it go.

Ruth had intended to write her mother and father and grandmother and tell them the exciting news that she’d found Ivy.

They’d worried for so long, and she had the power to relieve them of that worry.

But if she told them and Ivy found out, she might disappear again.

And if that happened, Ruth doubted there’d be a second serendipitous reunion.

If keeping her sister close meant keeping Ivy to herself, she could do that, for now.

She would tell them about her someday. Just not yet.