“Tally-ho,” one of them said cheerfully.

Fifteen

Dugway was the size of Rhode Island with two thousand people living on the base. But we could see nothing when we got in at half past five A.M. Laurel turned us over to a soldier, who put us in a truck and drove to a place where we could rest and freshen up. There wasn’t time for sleep. The plane would be taking off later in the day, and we needed to be on it.

Lucy and I were checked into the Antelope Inn, across from the Community Club. We had a room with twin beds on the first floor, furnished with light oak and wall-to-wall carpet, everything blue. It offered a view of barracks across the green, where lights were already beginning to come on with the dawn.

“You know, there really doesn’t seem any point in taking a shower since we’ll have to put on the same dirty things,” Lucy said, stretching out on top of her bed.

“You’re absolutely right,” I agreed, taking off my shoes. “You mind if I turn this lamp off?”

“I wish you would.”

The room was dark and I suddenly felt silly. “This is like a slumber party.”

“Yeah, the one from hell.”

“Remember when you used to come stay with me when you were little?” I said. “Sometimes we stayed up half the night. You never wanted to go to sleep, always wanting me to read one more story. You wore me out.”

“I remember it the other way around. I wanted to sleep and you wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Untrue.”

“Because you doted on me.”

“Did not. I could scarcely tolerate being in the same room,” I said. “But I felt sorry for you and wanted to be kind.”

A pillow sailed through the dark and hit me on the head. I threw it back. Then Lucy pounced from her bed to mine, and when she got there didn’t quite know what to do, because she was no longer ten and I wasn’t Janet. She got up and went back to her bed, loudly fluffing pillows behind her.

“You sound like you’re a lot better,” she said.

“Better, but not a lot. I’ll live.”

“Aunt Kay, what are you going to do about Benton? You don’t even seem to think about him anymore.”

“Oh yes I do,” I answered. “But things have been a little out of control of late, to say the least.”

“That’s always the excuse people give. I should know. I heard it all my life from my mother.”

“But not from me,” I said.

“That’s my point. What do you want to do about him? You could get married.”

The mere thought unnerved me again. “I don’t think I can do that, Lucy.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe I’m too set in my ways, on a track I can’t get off. Too much is demanded of me.”

“You need to have a life, too.”

“I feel like I do,” I said. “But it may not be what everybody else thinks it should be.”