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“What if you give me some time? To think about how to frame it. How to explain,” Vivian begged.

Don’t you see what a gift this is? George wanted to say.

Two daughters, when you had none? The nearly constant pain made her impatient, allowed her to see clearly how much nonsense cluttered up everyone’s lives.

Vivian, she realized, didn’t believe herself worthy of forgiveness.

Well, George was too tired to try to persuade her that there was nothing to forgive.

Each day, she found herself less capable of resistance.

In the end, all the nonsense would win. Why waste her strength fighting it?

“All right. Take some time. But don’t take too long, because I don’t have long.”

She woke the next morning to find Vivian sitting on the side of her bed, her suitcase at her feet. “I’ve got a taxi waiting,” she said. “To take me to the airfield.”

George started to protest.

“You’re being very generous,” said Vivian, not meeting George’s gaze. “Giving me time ... I’ll think better somewhere else, though. The girls feel too close to me here. I just need a little distance.”

“Will you call me?” asked George. “I won’t pester you—I promise. But just—it will help me to hear your voice.”

“Of course. I love you, Georgeanne. Take care.” Vivian leaned down for a hug, and George clung to her, holding on until her friend gently pulled away.

The matrons of Enid passed through George’s living room.

Friends of Adele’s at first. That older generation had seen enough death that they weren’t skittish about it.

Though it was such a shame, she heard them whisper.

A woman her age. Just getting started, really.

Golden years and all that. Such a shame. But who could fathom God’s will?

George certainly couldn’t.

Next came her own generation. A second wave of casseroles and cakes surged through George’s living room.

Tom was often there. She refused to let him move back in, but he was always dropping by.

Whenever Tom left, Frank appeared. “This is it,” he said. “I’m leaving Helen. Let’s stop pretending we’re all fine with—whatever this has been. Let’s do what we should have done all along.”

“You’re going to need Helen,” she said. “Don’t you dare leave her.”

“This isn’t entirely up to you, George.”

They were infuriating. She was dying, and nothing was up to her anymore.

The day was coming—it wouldn’t be long now, she realized—when she’d need to stay in the hospital full time.

She called Helen and asked her to come by.

Tom was on a two-day trip out west, Frank had meetings with his design team, and Ruth had a morning shift.

George wanted to apologize to Helen before she no longer could.

Helen didn’t want to hear it. “I don’t know what you’re sorry for. Everything is just fine, Georgeanne.”

Even after Frank Jr. died, Helen had clung to the safety of Just Fine.

As in, “ Of course it’s terrible, but we’ll be Just Fine ” and “ As soon as I get his clothing off to the Salvation Army, I’ll be Just Fine.

” George knew she’d been anything but. She was, despite her polished surface, anything but Just Fine now.

I could have stayed in New York, thought George.

The lady downstairs might have helped me out occasionally.

I could have managed. But I came home. Where Just Fine is what everyone aspires to.

Scratch that—it’s what everyone is . Tom had probably told his copilot just that morning that she was Just Fine.

It was the equilibrium everyone sought. Because the alternatives, Not Fine or Very Fine, were either pitiable or boastful.

“Helen, I’m trying to be honest with you. I was selfish. Terribly selfish. It was wrong, and I knew it every moment. I was a horrible friend to you, and you deserve so much better. I’m sorry, Helen. You don’t have to forgive me, but please hear me, that’s all I’m asking.”

Helen stood at the credenza with her back to George, plucking dead stems from various flower arrangements and fluffing up the remainder.

She said nothing for so long that George stopped expecting her to speak.

She resisted performing any conversational CPR.

If Helen wanted to change the subject, that was up to her.

Or maybe Helen would pick up her pocketbook and walk out the door, and the two of them would never exchange another word. It was exactly what she deserved.

Helen moved away from the credenza, ran a finger along one of the end tables, inspected it for dust, brushed it on her skirt, and, finally, spoke.

“I wasn’t going to be one of those divorcées.

I wasn’t. He wanted to, you know. Even though you and Tom didn’t, which, believe me, I did point out.

But I said absolutely not. Till death do us part.

And he always came home. Every night in my bed.

Even if ...” She broke off and turned to face George.

“Maybe you think I’m stupid. Worrying about how it all looks.

But I don’t know how to fly airplanes, and I don’t have investments to manage, and I don’t want to go out to roast beef dinners with balding, paunchy middle-aged men.

I want my house and my husband in it. And you two were reasonably discreet.

I know it looked weak and stupid to you. ”

“No. Never, Helen.” Though it had at times.

“Doesn’t matter in the long run, does it? In the long run, none of us decides who’s left to come home to.”

George wanted Ivy to come home. She had written letter after letter, promising to tell her everything, but Ivy had never replied. She wanted Vivian to come back, but Vivian had gone AWOL.

She called Patterson, but even he didn’t know where she was. “I spooked her, George. I proposed to her—she probably told you.” George didn’t admit that Vivian had not.

“I think I may have spooked her too,” she said.

“I can’t think where she’s gone to,” said Patterson. “If you hear from her—”

“You’ll be the first to know, Don. I swear it.” She could sense Ivy and Vivian, floating just beyond her reach, just when she needed and wanted them most.