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“Ivy,” her mother said.

“She’s coming, Mom. She’ll be here soon.” Truth didn’t matter anymore. Only her mother’s comfort mattered.

George grimaced, and Ruth pushed the button—again—to call the nurse.

“Tell Ruth,” her mother murmured.

“I’m right here,” she said. Her mother’s hand felt like ice, the fingers—once so strong and nimble, capable of fixing everything: bandaging knees, mending hems, repairing engines, soothing sorrows—clenched, rigid against the pain.

Ruth gave up on the button and yelled toward the hallway. “She needs morphine! Now!”

“Ivy,” George said again. Then uttered a jumbled string of syllables.

The nurse didn’t look at Ruth when she entered the room. She walked slowly to George’s bedside and spent a long time taking her pulse. Ruth wanted to strangle her.

“Just give her the morphine,” she said. “Just do your goddamn job.”

The nurse glared at her, then injected the drug into her mother’s IV. In less than a second, George’s fingers unclenched. Her breathing leveled out.

“I can’t give her any more—I won’t give her any more—this has to last until the next shift,” said the nurse. “So you can quit yelling down the hall at me.” She pivoted on her crepe-soled heel and stalked out.

By the next shift change, Ruth’s mother was gone.

“I thought white roses for the casket,” said Helen.

“That sounds fine,” said Ruth.

“I had them put a navy dress aside for you at Herzberg’s. I do recommend navy. It won’t wash you out the way black does.”

“That sounds fine.”

“And I made an appointment for you at Lois’s.”

“I’m not getting my hair cut.” She was grateful to Helen, but there was a limit.

“She’s completely booked, but I convinced her to squeeze you in. Maybe she can just do a wash and set. Though I think it would look so pretty if you let her cut it. Lois is a genius.”

After Helen left, Ruth called Lois to cancel the appointment.

“But Helen insisted I fit you in,” argued Lois. “For your mother’s funeral.”

“My mother knows how I look. She never once suggested I look any other way.”

“It kills them,” said Kimberly when Ruth recounted these conversations. “Simply kills them that we keep our hair long. That we don’t do the weekly wash and set thing.”

There had been a time—well, that time had been most of her life—when what Ruth wanted most of all was to fit in.

Before she left for Vietnam, she’d assumed her future held weekly appointments with Lois.

Marriage to a man with a good job and a good handicap.

Membership in the Junior League, then the Garden Club and the Literary Guild.

Having babies and doing everything that everyone expected of her.

The things Ivy would never do in a million years.

She had planned, she explained to Kimberly, to do it all well enough for both of them.

“I know what you mean,” said Kimberly. “I wanted all of that too.”

“Maybe we can still have it—the parts that matter, anyway,” said Ruth. “Together.”

Something that looked like doubt flickered across Kimberly’s face. But she leaned in and kissed Ruth, who kissed her back like she was making a vow.

The service was beautiful. Helen had handled everything: convincing the minister, reluctant because he hadn’t known George, to speak, ordering the roses for the casket, arranging the impressive regiment of wreaths flanking it.

The minister spoke about George’s close relationship with her mother, the talented daughters she’d raised, her long marriage to Tom, her service during the war, her contributions to the Enid community.

He left the details rather vague and made no mention of her partnership—business or otherwise—with Frank.

The Quigleys had flown in. Bob eyed Ruth warily as Joyce clasped her hand and slurred her condolences.

Don Patterson flew in. “This isn’t the time,” he said, “and I apologize for that. But have you heard from Vivian? Is she here?”

Ruth hadn’t and she wasn’t.

Adele’s friends (those who remained) claimed seats near the front of the church.

Tom’s pilot friends filled the back pews, alongside club members and an assortment of aviation types.

Kimberly fidgeted beside Ruth, flipped through the hymnal, fussed with the clasp of her purse, swiveled her head to look at anything other than the casket beneath its blanket of white roses.

Ruth scooted closer to her on the hard pew.

Kimberly scooted away, apparently determined to keep a good half foot between them.

The ladies’ auxiliary laid out a luncheon in the annex—another coup spearheaded by Helen. Ruth poked at her Waldorf salad and chicken casserole. Kimberly had crossed the room to say hello to a table of fellow nurses and fallen so deep into their conversation that Ruth couldn’t catch her eye.

Over near the buffet, Joyce Quigley swayed a bit on her kitten heels, and her husband steadied her.

Don Patterson cornered Tom near the pitchers of iced tea.

Her father shook his head, no doubt saying he didn’t know where Vivian was either.

From somewhere behind her, she heard Helen say, “They’re in no shape to handle the thank-you notes. I’ll probably take care of those too.”

She must remember to thank Helen. For the dress she’d picked out, for the roses and the minister and the luncheon.

And the thank-you notes. For doing all of that despite her husband’s ashen face.

Frank, still whip thin, had turned stoop shouldered overnight.

He stumbled a bit when Joyce Quigley brushed past him, and Bob caught his arm to right him.

He looked old and lonely. Ruth abandoned her plate and went to stand beside him.

He patted her shoulder. “Come by the office this week, Ruth,” he said. “I’ll walk you through your mom’s portfolio. Give you the lay of the land.”

Frank’s secretary—and then Frank—called her house repeatedly, trying to set up a meeting.

She decided to hide out at her mother’s and tackle the thank-you notes instead.

She bought a few boxes of black-edged Crane’s and drove over.

Tom had been sleeping in the guest room.

His name was on the deed; the house was his.

She’d tried to convince him to move back in, but he’d been noncommittal.

He was George’s executor, and he kept trying to talk to her about the will.

She didn’t want to talk about any of it.

“Let’s deal with these letters first,” she told her father.

They sat in the kitchen, a fifth of rye on the table between them, and began.

But they made better headway with the bottle than the correspondence.

Ruth, eager for any distraction, jumped up at the sound of a car pulling up outside and went to the window.

Two young men with gleaming shoes and baby faces stepped out of an olive-green sedan.

“Dad?”

In an instant, he was at her shoulder. “No,” he said, taking in the uniformed men as they came slowly up the walk. “No, no, no.”

She hadn’t yet written to Ivy. Couldn’t bear the possibility—the likelihood—that she wouldn’t respond. Now, she understood, there was no point in writing her sister at all.

“No,” he repeated when Ruth moved to the door, “don’t let them in.” As if keeping them outside, preventing them from speaking, would make it untrue.

“Dad, we have to let them in.” She shifted him gently out of the way so that they could enter, led him to the couch. The young men followed a respectful distance behind.

They were well practiced. Serious, sympathetic, straight to the point. “We’re sorry for the delay in telling you,” the shorter one said. “But her paperwork contained some inaccurate information.”

Ruth snorted, and he startled. “Sorry,” she said, “it’s just that, if you knew Ivy, the inaccurate paperwork wouldn’t come as a surprise.”

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “They sent the file to Moody AFB first. It didn’t reach us at Vance until yesterday, I’m afraid.”

“But Moody’s in—”

“Yes, sir. South Georgia, sir.”

“Vivian,” Tom said, and dropped his head into his hands. “So that’s where she went.” Ruth put her arms around him.

The taller one glanced at his clipboard. “Miss Vivian Shaw. That’s correct, sir.”

“She didn’t call,” said Tom, shaking in Ruth’s arms. “Why didn’t she call?”

But Ruth had a different question. “That plane,” she said. “That plane was bringing Ivy home?”

“Yes, ma’am. Well, as far as California, anyway.”

She would have taken California. Or Hawaii, or Guam. She would have taken Ivy remaining safely in Saigon, though she supposed safe and Saigon should no longer appear in the same sentence.

“I never realized she had so much,” said Ruth.

Tom had refused to put off discussing the will any longer.

“She could have lived in a mansion. She could have—” But she found herself at a loss as to what else rich people might do with their money.

Which was a shame, because now it was her money.

It shouldn’t be. She didn’t deserve it, had no idea what to do with it.

Maybe Kimberly would know. Maybe this bit of news would be just the thing to capture her attention and focus it back in Ruth’s direction.

She’d barely seen Kimberly since the funeral.

“Your mother could have done whatever she wanted,” agreed Tom. “Well, she mostly did.” Ruth detected no anger in his voice as he said this. “Now you can do whatever you want.”

“I don’t know what I want,” said Ruth. Not true. She wanted Kimberly to stop dodging her at the hospital, to return to her bed.

“That’s okay, sweetheart. You don’t have to change a thing. Just go to work. Spend time with your ... friend.”

If only, thought Ruth. Kimberly had made herself scarce since the funeral. Always too tired from work or too busy with Lloyd to see her. “What about you, Dad?”

“I’ll be here. You can see me too.”

“No. I mean, shouldn’t most of it go to you?”