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“Thank God,” said Vivian when George called to tell her Ivy was in Vietnam. “She’s safe. I can’t imagine how relieved you must feel.”

“Hmm,” said George. Vivian tightened her grip on the phone and held her breath. She could have eased George’s worry and fear years ago, but she’d kept mum about Ivy’s visit, about giving her the money to run even farther from home. And look how far she’d gotten.

Long ago Vivian had run away from home herself.

And then gone back. She’d been waiting, all these years, for Ivy to do the same.

Why wouldn’t she? Ivy had run from a much better home than the one Vivian left.

But as months and then years passed with no reappearance, no word from Ivy, Vivian’s heart filled with regret.

She knew nothing about teenagers, just as she’d known nothing about babies.

And because of that, she’d failed her friend yet again.

George finally spoke. “I wouldn’t call Vietnam safe. But at least we know she’s alive.”

“And she’s with Ruth,” Vivian managed. “I’m glad they’re together.”

“Hmm,” said George.

George hadn’t wanted Ruth to go to Vietnam, but Vivian had thought it sounded like a grand adventure. Like something she and George would have done when they were young. Until she remembered Camp Davis. George feared the war itself, but Vivian feared the men who fought it.

After George’s call, Vivian wrote to each of the girls.

A few weeks later she received two cramped pages from Ruth, describing her hoochmates, the hospital, the GIs.

No mention of Ivy. And no reply from Ivy herself.

Maybe she’d never gotten Vivian’s letter.

Vietnam was a long way for such a flimsy envelope to travel.

Maybe it got torn or lost. Vivian sat down at her desk and wrote to each girl again.

Weeks later she received another chatty response from Ruth.

Nothing from Ivy. She pulled out two sheets of stationery and flicked her lighter open and closed, thinking about what to write this time.

Patterson rested his warm hands on her shoulders.

How she loved the weight of them. He began kneading.

“Mmmm.” She closed her eyes and set down the lighter.

“Keeping up with your correspondence?” he asked.

“Writing to Ruth and Ivy.” He lightly rested the point of his chin atop her head and peered at the letters.

She hadn’t gotten far. One sheet read, “Dear Ruth, thanks for your letter.” The other read, “Dear Ivy, I hope you received ...” She should ball that one up and start over. She didn’t want to sound like a scold.

“The famous twins.” She stiffened at the forced lightness of his tone. He massaged her shoulders again, and she willed herself to relax.

“You’re very close to them.”

“Well, they’re George’s, and I’m very close to her.” She eased out from under his hands and stood, gathered the pages, and slid them into the desk drawer.

“It’s probably nothing,” said Patterson, and Vivian closed her eyes again, waiting for the nothing that would almost certainly be something. “But there was a rumor, near the end of the war. That you were ... expecting.”

She tapped a Winston from her pack. He picked up the lighter and lit it for her. “Were you?” he asked.

She inhaled, turned away from him, and blew out a long blue ribbon of smoke. “Obviously not,” she said.

He lit one for himself. “That’s what I thought.

” He picked up the newspaper and settled into his chair.

Two chairs—one for him and one for her, with a table between them to hold the ashtray.

An arrangement of furniture that meant they had a life together.

He ashed his cigarette, shook open the paper.

“For the record,” he said, “I wouldn’t have minded. ”

Easy to say, she thought, taking another drag, when you think there’s nothing to mind.