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By the end—after all of the excisions and infusions—George felt as though she’d washed up on a beach after being battered by a monthslong storm.

The doctors celebrated this “outcome.” She couldn’t pretend to join them.

She lay on the figurative sand, spent. Wishing some days that the tide would pull her back out and take her.

Knowing, regardless of the cheer in the oncology department, that another wave would come—bigger and stronger than the last. That she could never make it far enough from the tide line to stay safe.

She was weak, she was slow, her brain felt like it was filled with mud.

Food tasted like metal, but she ate anyway.

Ivy couldn’t stay in Vietnam forever, and George intended to be well and strong when her daughter returned.

At which point, she would tell both girls the truth.

Tell them together. Regardless of what Vivian or Tom or anyone else wanted.

She wrote to Ivy, repeatedly, promising to tell her everything, but only if she came home. Only if they could see each other.

Every time she mentioned Ivy to Ruth, Ruth either left or changed the subject. When George asked if they’d had a falling-out, Ruth said, “Of what?”

Better not to press, thought George. She didn’t know how she’d have survived her treatments without Ruth by her side.

She worried that once she recovered, her daughter might leave.

There were so many more interesting places in the world than Enid.

But Ruth seemed happy these days. She’d made a good friend at the hospital.

After a few months, Ruth’s increasingly frequent mentions of Kimberly gathered enough weight to pull the cord of the light bulb in her mind: her daughter and Kimberly were something more than friends.

Once she recovered from the surprise of it, the notion didn’t trouble her.

Some of the WASPs and WAACs she’d known had preferred women.

What troubled her was how she’d been blind to her daughter’s true self.

Ruth had taken such good care of her, had stood by her side during every one of her worst days, and George had never really seen her.

One more maternal failing—this one unforgivably huge—to add to the ever-lengthening list. Would she never get better at being a mother?

She pulled out the plat of the latest Bridlemile Properties subdivision and traced a finger through the maze of streets until she found the lot she wanted.

The Avonlea was the smallest model in the Bridlemile portfolio, and it was still, Ruth insisted when George handed her the deed, too much.

“But you deserve it,” said George. “For taking care of me. For taking care of all those boys overseas. And those children at St. Mary’s.”

“I’m happy where I am.”

“In that little room in Mrs. Cannady’s house? You can barely turn around.”

George didn’t mention that Mrs. Cannady had called her twice in the past month to say she thought something might be wrong with Ruth.

“She wakes up yelling. Something about over there and something about a foot. It’s waking up my other boarders.

And the room is a single. But lately there’s always another girl here. ”

“It’s plenty for me,” insisted Ruth.

“Sure,” said George. “But it might not always just be you. Someday you might have a ... roommate.”