Glenna unwound the tubing from her finger and noticed me watching her. Smiling as though I’d caught her doing something shameful and stuffing the tube in her pocket, she said, “It’s a tourniquet. For drawing bloods.”

I was tempted to hold out my arm as a joke, but I didn’t want to distract her.

“In August, I convinced Vicky to enter the talent show. Most of the performances were worse than the weird-animal acts on Ed Sullivan. Then Vicky sang ‘Moon River’ as if it was part folk song, part prayer. I was thrilled she was up onstage, but her singing scared me. She sang ‘Moon River’ as if she knew more about longing than anyone on earth. You know that longing, Gordon, that terrible, bottomless longing?”

I nearly replied, Yes, every second I look at you. Instead, I nodded, and Glenna said, “Vicky got a standing ovation, and for the rest of the summer she was a star. She sang all over camp and always drew a crowd, and she even started dancing with boys. On the last day, we were about to board our buses for home, and Vicky began sobbing. I’d had my arms around her, and when I let go, she said, ‘Thank you, Glenna,’ and ran for her bus. Before getting on, she turned and shouted, ‘Thank you for everything!’”

Glenna leaned back in her chair. “In September, Vicky wrote me she had a boyfriend who looked like Steve McQueen. He was a freshman at Dartmouth, and I thought that was weird. What kind of college freshman dates a fifteen-year-old? But Vicky wrote that he was wonderful, and in two hours they were driving to Amherst to see Joan Baez at UMass.”

Tears glistened on Glenna’s cheeks. A lump was rising in my throat.

“I wrote Vicky that she should be careful, but six weeks later, I still hadn’t heard back, so I called. Her mother answered. She sounded drugged, and as soon as she heard my voice, she said, ‘Oh, Glenna, we’ve lost our Victoria. You girls have to watch out. You—’

“Vicky’s mother dropped the phone. I kept saying, ‘Hello,’ but no one answered, and I hung up. I was sure Vicky had died in a car accident on her UMass trip. I told my parents and then cried myself to sleep. A few days later, I got a letter. Some other kids at our camp were from New Hampshire, where Vicky lived, and one of them had sent me a clipping about her from the Manchester Union Leader. She’d been pregnant and gone to some slaughterhouse in a motel behind a truck stop. The state police arrested the guy doing the abortions. The article said Vicky had died from a massive hemorrhage. I’m guessing the asshole perforated her uterus.”

I reached over and touched Glenna’s hand with my fingers. She ran her hand over mine, then dabbed at her cheeks with the sleeve of her lab jacket.

“I felt so fucking guilty,” she said.