The Women

In May 1966, twenty-year-old Frances "Frankie" McGrath helps her wealthy Coronado family see off her older brother Finley, a Naval Academy graduate bound for Vietnam. Finley arrives drunk with his best friend Rye Walsh, embarrassing their parents, Bette and Connor McGrath. Although Connor praises his son's patriotic service, Frankie fears for Finley's safety.

Frankie retreats to her father's office, where a wall of family military portraits and medals commemorates male relatives who served, although Connor himself was medically disqualified. Rye joins her and questions why no women appear among the heroes. His insistence that women can also be heroes makes Frankie reconsider the narrow future of marriage and temporary nursing work expected of her. Later, alone on the beach, she wonders how to make a meaningful choice of her own. Finley joins her, dismisses the danger by describing his shipboard assignment as safe, and promises to return. His unsteady voice nevertheless reveals his fear, leaving Frankie anxious as his departure approaches.

During Finley's first six months in Vietnam, Frankie writes weekly and receives cheerful accounts of his ship and social life. She accelerates her studies, graduates early with honors, and takes a night-shift registered-nurse position at a small San Diego hospital. Despite her qualifications, the charge nurse restricts her to basic patient care because she lacks clinical experience.

In Room 107, Frankie meets a young Vietnam veteran who lost a leg to a mine and has attempted suicide. He describes nightmares, a strained relationship, and a nurse at the Twelfth Evacuation Hospital who helped him endure his injuries. Frankie stays with him until he sleeps and realizes that women are serving and saving lives in Vietnam, although their work is largely absent from the news. She imagines joining her brother overseas and earning a place on the family's heroes' wall. The Navy and Air Force demand stateside experience before deployment. The Army Nurse Corps promises to send her after basic training, so she signs up and becomes Second Lieutenant Frances McGrath. Her confidence still rests on a sheltered expectation that a hospital posting will keep her away from combat.

Back on Coronado Island near Christmas 1966, Frankie announces that she has joined the Army Nurse Corps and expects to serve in Vietnam after training. Her parents react with alarm rather than pride. Connor insists military service is for the men of the family and objects to the Army instead of the Navy. Bette remembers her own father's wartime wounds and nightmares, warns Frankie that war is not an adventure, and urges her to stay safe. She briefly embraces Frankie but cannot celebrate the enlistment.

Before the argument can settle, two naval officers arrive and report that Finley has been killed after the helicopter carrying him was shot down; there are no remains to return. Connor and Bette are devastated. Frankie flees to the beach, remembering her close childhood with Finley and struggling to accept an empty coffin. Bette joins her and pleads with her not to go to Vietnam. Frankie says she has signed a commitment she cannot undo and asks for her mother's blessing. Bette reminds her that Finley also promised to come home, then walks away, leaving them divided in grief.

In March 1967, after excelling at basic training, Frankie travels to Vietnam as the only woman among hundreds of new soldiers on her flight from Honolulu. She meets Captain Norm Bronson, a weary returning officer who warns her that no description can prepare her for the country. She still assumes she will be protected in a large hospital far from combat. The plane has to circle Tan Son Nhut under apparent hostile fire before landing. In Saigon she is driven under guard to temporary quarters near Third Field Hospital, drinks unsafe tap water, and becomes violently ill.

The following morning, already weak and late for in-processing, Frankie learns she is assigned not to the Saigon hospital but to the Thirty-Sixth Evacuation Hospital, approximately sixty miles away on the coast. A frightening helicopter transfer exposes her to gunfire and explosions. First Lieutenant Patty Perkins explains the hospital's understaffed casualty care, precautions against enemy fire, and primitive accommodation. Alone in a hot, cramped hooch, Frankie studies a photograph of herself and Finley and regrets coming to a war zone without him, fearing she may not survive the year.

Still reeling from the long journey and the harsh realities of her new environment, Frankie is struggling five hours after arriving at the Thirty-Sixth Evac Hospital. Her roommates, Ethel Flint and Barb Johnson, burst into the hooch, bloodied and exhausted from a long shift. Ethel, an ER nurse from Virginia, and Barb, a surgical nurse from Georgia, quickly dispel any romanticized notions Frankie might have had about her service, urging her to strip off her formal uniform and join them for a drink.

Reluctantly, Frankie changes into borrowed clothes and follows Ethel to the Officers’ Club, where the atmosphere is a stark contrast to the tense, chaotic world outside. The club is filled with smoke, music, and a mix of officers and enlisted personnel. Frankie is introduced to the other officers, including Patty Perkins, who is playing cards. As she navigates the raucous environment, a rocket attack interrupts the festivities, causing panic and chaos. Jamie Callahan, a surgeon from Jackson Hole, pulls Frankie to safety, calming her with his presence and reassuring words.

The attack subsides, and the party resumes as if nothing had happened. Jamie offers Frankie a shot of whiskey to calm her nerves, and she hesitates, torn between her fear and the need to fit in. The chapter ends with Frankie beginning to understand the complex, often contradictory nature of life in Vietnam, where danger and camaraderie coexist in a delicate balance.

Frankie wakes up disoriented and ill in her hooch, plagued by the memories of the previous night's drinking and the harsh realities of her new environment. A rat scurries across the floor, and she feels weak but forces herself to get ready for her first day on duty. Reporting to Major Goldstein, she is assigned to the emergency room (ER) for a mass casualty event (MASCAL), despite her lack of experience and initial hesitation.

In the ER, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and the severity of the injuries. Ethel, her mentor, guides her through the triage process, and Frankie holds the hand of a dying soldier named Private Fournette, providing comfort in his final moments. After the MASCAL, Frankie feels useless and ashamed, questioning her ability to help the wounded. Ethel comforts her, sharing her own story and offering advice on how to cope with the challenges of war.

Later, Frankie and Ethel return to their hooch, where Ethel shares more about her background and the racial tensions faced by Barb. Frankie reflects on her first day and the horrors she witnessed, struggling to process the emotional toll. She eventually goes to the latrines, where she encounters Jamie, who is dealing with his own grief over a friend's death. Jamie walks her back to the hooch, and they share a moment of mutual understanding and support.

Major Wendy Goldstein assigns Frankie to the Neuro ward's night shift after her difficult first mass-casualty response. Captain Ted Smith shows her how to monitor severely brain-injured American and Vietnamese patients. Over several weeks she learns to maintain ventilators, check neurological responses, change dressings and assess pain, treating each unconscious patient as an individual. Nineteen-year-old Private Jorge Ruiz, who saved his platoon, receives a visit from two comrades. They photograph Frankie holding his hand for his mother and give her an insignia in gratitude, although his survival remains uncertain.

After roughly six weeks of Frankie's near-isolation on Neuro, Ethel and Barb take her with Captain Smith on a Medical Civic Action Program visit to a rural village. The team treats villagers while armed soldiers guard against possible Viet Cong attacks. A young boy leads Frankie to an adolescent girl whose hand is gangrenous from a likely mill injury. Smith determines that without an amputation she may die; he performs the operation while Frankie restrains and then dresses the patient, and Frankie explains the required antibiotics and wound care to an older woman. The boy gives Frankie a gray stone, and she gives him her Saint Christopher medal. The encounter affirms the value of her medical work and her friends' desire to help her advance beyond Neuro.

An April 1967 letter from Bette attacks domestic antiwar protests and laments women's limited choices. Frankie has moved to Neuro's day shift. At Captain Ted Smith's farewell party in Long Binh, Jamie encourages her to transfer to surgery, with Smith's endorsement. The first operating-room shift is overwhelming, but Jamie guides her through wound treatment and Frankie earns his, Barb's and Patty's praise.

Afterward Ethel reveals that Jamie is married. Frankie confronts him and learns that Sarah is his wife and they have a son, Davy. Though attracted to Jamie, she rejects an affair and insists on honoring marriage vows, then agrees to speak with him as a friend. Frankie's May letter home celebrates her new surgical training; Bette's reply recognizes the importance of work that matters.

In June and July 1967 Frankie gains confidence in surgery, successfully closing a wounded soldier's abdominal incision under Jamie's supervision. Torrential monsoon rains, increasing casualties and exhaustion intensify their attachment, but Jamie is married, and Frankie resists acting on her growing love. Bette's letters discuss protests and allegations of bombing of civilian institutions, while Ethel is approaching her September return home.

In late July Ethel, Barb, Jamie and Frankie make a MEDCAP visit to St. Elizabeth's Orphanage. A nun introduces Frankie to Mai, a malnourished, burned little girl who was found in a ditch in her dead mother's arms following the bombing of her village. Frankie treats the child's fever and injuries, persuades her to accept candy, and holds her to sleep. Afterward Frankie and her friends consider the disturbing fact that Mai's village was in South Vietnam, where they believe American bombs caused the destruction.

Ethel's September 1967 farewell is a lively riverbank gathering arranged with Seawolves helicopter pilots. Frankie learns to water-ski and momentarily enjoys carefree companionship. Jamie, scheduled to meet his wife Sarah during R and R in Maui, asks Frankie to accompany him. She refuses and stops his advance. Ethel and Frankie acknowledge their coming separation.

The Seawolves are urgently called to Pleiku, interrupting the party; their return helicopter is attacked. A separate overnight red alert sends everyone into a long mass-casualty shift. Jamie tells Frankie he loves her before leaving for Maui, but she cannot say it back. Ethel slips away without saying goodbye while they work. During Jamie's leave the undermanned hospital struggles; an incoming helicopter brings him back with a missing leg and catastrophic chest and head wounds after a crash. Frankie implores surgeon Rob Aldean to save him.

Jamie lies unconscious and critically injured in Neuro. After Rob Aldean expresses doubt about his survival, Frankie puts the gray stone from a Vietnamese village, marked with encouragement, into his possessions and confesses her love. While medics take him to a helicopter for transfer to Third Field Hospital, his heart stops. She sees resuscitation efforts cease as the helicopter leaves, interprets this as his death and grieves without a definitive report. Ethel offers consolation by letter, and Barb tells Frankie she will leave in December.

Major Goldstein transfers Frankie to the dangerous Seventy-First Evacuation Hospital at Pleiku despite praising her abilities. Barb volunteers to accompany her. Newly arrived Wilma Cottington moves into their former quarters. Upon arrival at the primitive new base, Sergeant Alvarez directs them to the wards, where rocket fire and casualties from Dak To demand immediate emergency surgery. Frankie assists surgeon Hap Dickerson through electrical blackouts, and afterward she and Barb comfort each other.

At Pleiku in November 1967, Frankie and Barb treat heavy casualties with surgeon Hap Dickerson, sometimes through bombardment and blackouts. They discuss the gap between the Army newspaper's promises of victory and the accumulating losses of Americans and Vietnamese civilians. In a letter home, Frankie questions the war while insisting that the men she treats deserve respect regardless of the government's actions. Her concern deepens after she finds a young dead Black soldier outside the morgue and gently returns a 1966 senior-prom photograph, addressed to 'Beez,' to his pocket. Barb reads a letter from her mother worrying about her brother Will's involvement with the Black Panthers after racial unrest in Detroit.

Lieutenant Melvin 'Coyote' Turner invites the nurses to a pilot's farewell in Saigon. They fly out, stay at the Caravelle Hotel, shop in the French Quarter and enjoy a rare meal away from the war. At the evening party Coyote courts Frankie and introduces her to his commander 'Riot,' who turns out to be Joseph Ryerson 'Rye' Walsh, Finley's Naval Academy friend and the man who first told Frankie that women could be heroes.

At the Saigon farewell party, Coyote continues to pursue Frankie, but her attention is drawn to Rye Walsh. She learns that Rye, now Coyote's commanding officer, is engaged to an admiral's daughter. After helping a drunken Barb back to the Caravelle Hotel, Frankie is summoned to its rooftop bar and finds Rye, not Coyote. They recall Finley and how Rye's belief that women could be heroes influenced her enlistment. They share an intense dance, but Frankie stops it when Rye dismisses the distance separating him from his fiancée. She insists she will not become involved with an engaged man. Back at Pleiku she treats Private Albert Brown's relatively minor shrapnel wound, poses for a photograph for his mother, and then helps a new nurse named Sharlene through her frightening first surgical emergency.

At Frankie's December birthday party, Coyote again asks her to become his girlfriend. She cares for him but does not reciprocate his feelings. He accepts her refusal, revealing how lonely he has become.

On Christmas Eve 1967, after treating casualties from fighting near Dak To, Frankie and Barb confront another discrepancy between official claims of no American losses and the men they have seen die. Rye and Coyote take them on a dangerous helicopter excursion into the mountains to retrieve a Christmas tree, which they decorate with improvised ornaments in their hooch. When Rye and Frankie are briefly alone, he admits his attraction. Frankie reminds him that he is engaged and refuses to be the other woman. He accepts the boundary and leaves.

A Christmas cease-fire allows the camp to enjoy a holiday meal and farewell gathering for Barb. Frankie reflects on Barb's experience of racism, her commitment to nursing Black soldiers, and the lessons she has taught about civil rights. On December 26, Barb departs without waking Frankie, leaving an affectionate note urging her to live rather than retreat into grief and a photograph of herself with Frankie and Ethel. Frankie is left alone at Pleiku, grateful for their wartime friendship.

Barb writes from Georgia in January 1968 about the disappointment of civilian nursing, racial inequality and her brother Will's troubles. Frankie receives a March 15 end-of-tour date, but on January 31 the Tet Offensive strikes Pleiku. She directs inexperienced roommate Margie Sloan to triage, organizes the OR under rocket attack, performs an emergency tracheotomy, and steadies newly arrived surgeon Captain Mark Morse. When Rye arrives searching for her, they discover her former patient Private Albert Brown gravely wounded among those thought beyond saving. Frankie stays with him until he dies, then recalls that his mother is named Shirley. Rye carries her back to her damaged hooch.

After witnessing further suffering, including a Vietnamese mother cradling her dead baby, Frankie decides her patients still need her and volunteers for a second year. Her February letter home causes Bette to demand her immediate return, whereas Ethel supports her commitment. Growing sleeplessness and burnout lead the new chief nurse, Captain Miniver, to order Frankie to take R and R in Kauai.

Frankie reaches the Coco Palms Hotel on Kauai for compulsory rest. After sleeping deeply and rediscovering an unthreatening beach, she encounters Rye Walsh, who admits he arranged her leave so they could meet and says he has broken off his engagement after the Tet attacks. Frankie confirms he is no longer engaged and accepts a dinner invitation. She calls Barb for advice, buys clothes and prepares for a date. Rye tells her he once wanted to ask her to a dance before Finley discouraged him, and they discuss their families, service and hopes after Vietnam. On a private beach they kiss, and Frankie willingly becomes sexually intimate with him for the first time.

During their remaining days together they fall in love. At the end of the leave Rye expects Frankie to go home when her initial tour ends, but she explains she has volunteered for another year because the wounded still need experienced nurses. He fears for her safety and initially resists; she insists he respect her calling. Rye resolves to extend his own service so they can remain together in Vietnam.

Back in Vietnam in spring 1968, Frankie fears for Rye's safety as his helicopter comes under fire. An April letter from Barb reports that her brother Will was killed by Oakland police during a confrontation involving the Black Panthers despite his reported surrender. Frankie responds from her own experience of losing Finley. Her letters home discuss the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, protest, drug use and mounting casualties.

During a July 4 shift, Frankie gives a dying escaped POW named Fred an airway so he can say farewell to the men who carried him out of captivity. Soon dozens of Vietnamese villagers injured by napalm arrive. An infant dies in Frankie's arms, and she and morgue attendant Juan Martinez place the baby in a box; her grief hardens into anger. She uses a restricted MARS radio call to hear Rye's voice, and he visits her hooch to comfort her. In November, after months of continued nursing, Goldstein and Miniver surprise Frankie with a promotion to first lieutenant. Rye joins the celebration, tells her he fears he will love her until he dies, and the phrasing troubles her.

On March 14, 1969, after two years in Vietnam, Frankie leaves Pleiku. She writes roommate Margie a note, packs photographs and nursing mementos, and travels with Rye to Tan Son Nhut airport. Rye expects to leave 27 days later. They part lovingly without saying goodbye; Frankie leaves on the Freedom Bird and feels both relief and sadness at departing the place where she found professional competence and purpose.

After a layover, she lands in Los Angeles and encounters a hostile reception from antiwar protesters, including insults and spit. Two Marines escort her through baggage claim, but taxi drivers also refuse her. She reaches Coronado after multiple bus transfers, still in uniform. At home, Connor reacts stiffly to the unannounced return and shows little interest when she offers a photograph of herself with Barb and Ethel for the family heroes' wall. He leaves for a meeting; Bette welcomes Frankie but suggests a bath and rest. Back in her childhood room, Frankie sees the hope chest and decorations that assume her fulfillment will come through marriage, underscoring how unlike her prewar self she has become.

In March 1969, Frankie struggles with combat nightmares, disorientation, insomnia and mounting anger as her parents refuse to discuss her Army service. At the country club she learns Connor told acquaintances she spent two years studying in Florence. Her protests against this lie and his refusal to acknowledge women's service lead to family arguments and growing isolation. She writes Rye, who is supposed to leave Vietnam soon, imagining a shared life as her only source of hope.

When Barb suggests a welcome-home party, Frankie drives to Compton to speak with Rye's father, Stanley Walsh. His repair shop is closed and he angrily shows her a telegram: Rye has been reported killed in action after his aircraft was shot down, and his remains are unrecovered. Shocked, Frankie returns home. Bette holds her as she grieves, but Connor offers no comfort. Frankie's nightmares now include imagined scenes of Rye's helicopter exploding. Her mother tells her that surviving grief means continuing to live, but Frankie cannot see how.

After learning Rye was reported killed, Frankie retreats to bed, drinks heavily and barely responds to her parents. Barb, worried because she has not heard from her friend since they discussed Rye's welcome-home party, calls the house and then comes with Ethel to help. On the beach, the three share grief, discuss the difficulty of returning from Vietnam and acknowledge the anger Frankie feels toward her family. Barb raises the Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Ethel asks what remains of Frankie's identity beyond the men she has lost. Frankie recognizes that she still loves nursing.

With their support, Frankie applies for a nursing job at a small San Diego hospital. Director Delores Smart discounts her two years of combat surgical experience and puts her on probation on the night shift. Charge nurse Mrs. Henderson assigns her only bedpans, water, telephones and other basic tasks, forbidding her from performing advanced procedures. Frankie persists despite humiliating restrictions and ongoing nightmares. Near the end, an older man, José Garcia, seeks help for his terminally ill wife Elena, and Frankie instinctively offers compassionate care.

In June 1969, a newspaper reports Army nurse Sharon Lane's death in Vietnam after a rocket attack, reminding Frankie how readily she might have died herself. Bette urges Frankie to attend an old school friend's gathering, which is actually a wedding shower. The guests casually discuss how well-connected young men avoided the war, while Frankie's parents' false story that she was studying in Florence persists. A song associated with Vietnam triggers her, and she angrily tells the women she was an Army nurse in combat conditions. They laugh as if she is joking. Shaken, she leaves and later recognizes how uncontrollable her anxiety and anger have become.

That night at her civilian hospital a gunshot patient arrives while doctors are handling another emergency. Frankie repeatedly calls for help, but the man cannot breathe. Drawing on Vietnam training, she performs an emergency tracheotomy that restores his airway. Rather than recognizing the intervention, Mrs. Henderson fires her for acting without physician authorization, citing liability. The dismissal destroys Frankie's fragile professional foothold.

After being fired, Frankie spends the night drinking on her parents' patio in a bloodstained nurse uniform. Connor confronts her about the scene at the wedding shower and admits that he falsely told friends she studied in Florence. Furious over his treatment of her service and Finley's death, Frankie tears down the framed military portraits on his heroes' wall and accuses him of pressuring Finley to go to war. Connor orders her out. Drunk and distraught, Frankie drives recklessly, crashes her Volkswagen into a streetlight, and realizes she urgently needs help.

At a VA outpatient clinic, Dr. Durfee refuses to treat her as a veteran suffering war-related distress, claiming there were no women in Vietnam and dismissing her experience because she was not an infantry combatant. Frankie calls Barb from the clinic, admitting she is falling apart. Barb directs her to the Crystal Pier Cottages and arrives there with Ethel. They propose moving Frankie and Barb into a bunkhouse on Ethel's family farm near Charlottesville while Ethel continues veterinary school and Barb participates in Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Frankie accepts, grateful that her friends are offering both shelter and time to recover.

In April 1971, twenty-five-year-old Frankie lives with Barb in a converted bunkhouse on Ethel's family farm in Virginia. Friendship and horseback riding have helped stabilize her, although she still avoids discussing Vietnam and is working toward specialization in trauma nursing. Ethel studies veterinary medicine and is seeing Noah, while Barb works as a bartender and campaigns with Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Barb persuades Frankie to join the veterans' demonstration in Washington, invoking their lost friends and the men still fighting.

At the first march Frankie is dismissed by a male veteran who assumes no women served in Vietnam. She joins the march anyway and witnesses police preventing Gold Star Mothers from laying wreaths at Arlington. At a larger demonstration two days later, veterans throw their medals onto the Capitol steps and police disperse protesters with force and tear gas. Psychiatrist and surfer Henry Acevedo helps Frankie after she falls. She buys a POW/MIA bracelet bearing Major Robert Welch's name and learns about the League of Families' effort to bring prisoners home. In conversation with Henry she quietly acknowledges her own Vietnam service; she tells Barb that the cause needs further action.

Frankie persuades Barb to accompany her to a Washington fundraiser for families of prisoners of war. Anne Jenkins, whose husband is held at Hoa Lo Prison, describes inadequate government information and instances in which men first declared killed were later thought to be alive. When Anne recognizes Frankie as Bette and Connor McGrath's daughter, she casually mentions that Bette has suffered a stroke. Frankie, who has not been told, calls home and her father's office, then flies to San Diego. In the ICU Bette is unconscious and ventilated following an intracranial hemorrhage. Frankie stays to care for her while Connor, overwhelmed and remorseful, slowly reconnects with his daughter. Bette is successfully extubated and begins to speak; after discharge Frankie stays to help her recover and resigns from her Virginia nursing job.

Frankie apologizes for the angry confrontation that drove her away. Connor takes her to a nearby bungalow that Bette had insisted on furnishing as a safe home for Frankie, giving her the keys and a Mustang as his own gift. Bette is alive and recovering, and Frankie moves into her own home.

Now living in the Coronado bungalow, Frankie escorts her mother to physical and occupational therapy and encourages her to regain mobility after the stroke. A magazine article prompts Frankie to locate the San Diego office of the National League of Families. There Rose Contreras welcomes Frankie, an Army nurse veteran, and invites her to join a letter-writing campaign on behalf of American POWs. Frankie writes to political leaders and journalists, volunteering her time during her mother's appointments and whenever anxiety threatens her peace. Bette makes steady improvements, and Frankie finds greater purpose in the campaign.

By late June 1971, Frankie begins volunteering at a POW awareness and bracelet booth in Chula Vista with Joan, whose husband is imprisoned at Hoa Lo and whose daughter hardly remembers him. Henry Acevedo unexpectedly visits with his nephew Arturo, who will attend the Naval Academy. Henry makes another friendly overture, though Frankie is not ready to pursue it. In a July letter, Ethel announces that she and Noah have eloped.

In 1972, Frankie returns to civilian surgical nursing while continuing POW advocacy and helping Bette, whose recovery now permits more independence. At her parents' July Fourth party she is angered when Connor formally welcomes a male Vietnam veteran without acknowledging her service. An exploding firework triggers a combat flashback, and psychiatrist Henry Acevedo, attending as a hospital treatment-center board member, helps her recover and walks her home. Henry says his wife Susannah died of breast cancer. Frankie invites him inside, explaining that she still loves Rye and wants physical intimacy but is not ready for another love. They begin a casual relationship that gradually gives her companionship, though she conceals continuing nightmares and avoids committing emotionally.

In August Henry drives Frankie across the country to Miami for a Vietnam Veterans Against the War demonstration at the Republican National Convention, where they meet Barb. A silent veterans' march led by wounded soldiers makes a public statement against the war; Henry steps aside so Frankie can march with her fellow veterans. Afterward Barb encourages Frankie to accept happiness with Henry. Despite her involvement in the protests, renewed nightmares show that her effort to suppress traumatic memories remains unsuccessful.

In December 1972, Frankie becomes nauseated at a country-club lunch with Bette and worries her birth control has failed. Dr. Massie confirms she is approximately two months pregnant. Although the prospect of raising a child alone frightens her, she realizes that she does want to become a mother. Bette assumes Frankie should marry Henry, the man she has been seeing since July, but Frankie remains uncertain because she still grieves for Rye. Days later, after surgery involving a Vietnam veteran, Frankie returns home on her twenty-seventh birthday and tells Henry she is pregnant. He immediately proposes marriage and offers to move into the bungalow. She hesitates because she cannot claim to love him completely, yet accepts the possibility of a stable family and hopes that love may grow. Together they tell her parents about their engagement and the expected child. Connor welcomes Henry as his future son-in-law, and Bette celebrates becoming a grandmother.

In December 1972, Frankie tells Barb and Ethel she is pregnant and engaged to Henry. They set a February 17 wedding and furnish a yellow nursery. During a family dinner, Henry notices that her photograph is absent from Connor's heroes' wall. Connor insists women's photographs belong there only as wedding portraits and refuses to recognize Frankie's wartime service. He and Bette give her the deed to her bungalow as a wedding gift, and Henry announces that the Vietnam peace agreement has been signed. With Operation Homecoming underway, Frankie assists POW families preparing for reunions. Watching televised releases of prisoners arriving at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, she is stunned to see Rye Walsh alive. He had been reported killed when his helicopter went down in March 1969. Frankie conceals the discovery from Henry; Barb and Ethel rush to accompany her to Naval Air Station Miramar for Rye's return. At the airfield, Frankie sees Rye joyfully embracing and kissing a woman and small daughter who greet him as husband and father, destroying her belief that they could simply resume their life together.

After Rye's return in February 1973, Frankie learns from a local newspaper that he married his college sweetheart before deploying to Vietnam and has a daughter named Josephine, or Joey. His evasive assurance on Kauai that he was not engaged concealed an existing marriage. Barb and Ethel help her confront this betrayal, but Frankie initially resolves to marry Henry to provide their unborn child a loving father. While dancing with her friends, she suffers acute cramps and bleeding. Henry rushes her to the hospital, where she miscarries a boy they might have named Finley. Bette brings Frankie a heart-shaped necklace engraved Celine, revealing that Bette lost an unborn daughter before Frankie was born, and leaves her sedative and stimulant pills. Frankie breaks off the wedding because she remains in love with Rye despite knowing there can be no honest future with him. Henry is devastated, suggests veteran counseling, and returns his attention to their shared loss. Back alone in her bungalow, Frankie takes pills in an attempt to sleep through the pain.

In spring 1973, Frankie struggles with returning combat nightmares, her miscarriage and Rye's deception. She becomes dependent on a cycle of sedatives to sleep and stimulants to function, isolates herself, and increasingly lies to Barb and Ethel about her condition. During a rainy June emergency she freezes at the sight of a severely wounded patient, causing a surgeon to remove her from the operating room; later she misses a scheduled shift because of oversedation. Nursing director Geneva Stone places her on leave rather than firing her. On Coronado Beach Frankie sees Rye with his wife Melissa and their daughter Joey, follows their car to their San Diego home and is seen by Rye. He visits her bungalow and confesses that he married Melissa while she was pregnant two months before his first Vietnam tour, concealed the marriage from everyone, and planned to divorce after the war. Shot down in March 1969, he spent four years and three months as a prisoner, suffered a badly broken leg and shoulder injury, and relied on Melissa's letters to survive. Rye says he still loves Frankie and wants to leave his wife. Despite the deception and harm to his family, Frankie resumes their intimate relationship.

During summer 1973, Frankie continues her clandestine affair with Rye while on leave from nursing, concealing both from her family and friends and depending increasingly on medication. Rye claims he and Melissa are negotiating a divorce but says he cannot leave home yet because he wants to protect custody of their daughter, Joey. At Barb's Chicago wedding to Jeremiah 'Jere' Maine, Frankie is painfully conscious of the difference between her friends' publicly celebrated commitment and her secret affair. Ethel warns her against Rye. Frankie returns home determined to end the deception and tells Rye she will no longer be his mistress. Instead of leaving, he kneels and proposes marriage; she accepts, believing the affair will now become legitimate. In November nursing director Geneva Stone cautiously allows Frankie to return to surgical work, unaware of Frankie's continuing pill use. Shortly afterward Frankie hears that Melissa Walsh is a patient at the medical center and discovers she has just given birth to Rye's son. She realizes he has continued his marital relationship and lied during his proposal. Devastated, Frankie takes Valium, drinks at a Gaslamp Quarter bar, drives toward the Coronado Bridge and nearly collides with a cyclist, losing control of her car.

Frankie regains consciousness in hospital after a serious intoxicated driving collision in late 1973, learns she nearly struck Coronado High principal Bill Brightman and is charged with DUI. Connor, terrified of losing another child, asks whether she intended to die, and Frankie cannot dismiss the possibility. Seeking help, she goes to a VA medical center but is again excluded from group counseling for Vietnam veterans because she is a woman and a nurse rather than a male combat soldier. She visits Brightman to apologize; he reminds her that he has a family who could have lost him. Back at her parents' house, Frankie takes more sleeping pills and becomes disoriented. Imagining Finley calling her, she takes a surfboard into the dark, cold ocean and becomes too weak to return safely. Connor rescues her and accompanies her by ambulance to psychiatric care. She insists she had not consciously tried to kill herself, while her parents fear a suicide attempt. A mandatory 36-hour hold and sedation begin the intervention.

Following psychiatric detention, Frankie experiences drug withdrawal and enters an inpatient substance-treatment facility run by Henry Acevedo, her former fiancé. Henry does not become her primary therapist because of their previous relationship; he tells her she faces loss of her nursing license and introduces her to Dr. Alden. Henry, now engaged to schoolteacher Natalie, recognizes that Frankie's nightmares, intrusive memories, anxiety and anger began during Vietnam, well before Rye's betrayal and the miscarriage. He calls this post-traumatic stress disorder while noting it has not yet been formally incorporated into the diagnostic manual. Dr. Alden helps Frankie recount traumatic nursing experiences, including napalm injuries, mass casualties and the child Mai, through individual and group therapy and journaling. On her third Saturday in treatment, Barb visits. Frankie discloses the affair and recognizes that she has been hiding memories and distress out of shame. Barb admits that she, too, suffers war-related nightmares. Their exchange helps Frankie accept that healing requires communication and time rather than denial, although her recovery remains incomplete.

In early 1974, Frankie finishes extended inpatient treatment with Henry's and Dr. Alden's support. Sobriety, counseling and contact with fellow veterans help her understand her trauma, accept the loss of her nursing license and reevaluate Rye's selfish deception. She recognizes she cannot erase Vietnam or return to her prewar identity. Connor and Bette take her back to Coronado, and Bette cautiously begins speaking about the war. Frankie starts attending Alcoholics Anonymous, makes amends to Bill Brightman and works toward long-term recovery. By August, having regained her driver's license but still uncertain when she may practice nursing again, she tells her parents she wants to leave Coronado. She plans to sell the bungalow, which she legally owns, and begin an independent life somewhere quiet. Barb unexpectedly accompanies her. After traveling north through California and Oregon, they turn inland across Washington into Montana. Near Missoula they find a remote twenty-seven-acre property with an aging farmhouse, horse fields, a barn and river access. Frankie resolves to make it her new home.

In September 1982, Frankie receives an invitation to the November 13 unveiling of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and a reunion of Thirty-Sixth Evacuation Hospital staff. Since moving to Montana in 1974, she has regained her nursing license, worked with fellow veteran nurse Donna, earned training in clinical psychology, and established the Last Best Place Ranch near Missoula as a recovery refuge for women who served in Vietnam. Its own heroes' wall prominently displays photographs of women veterans. During a ranch group meeting, other former nurses differ about whether attending the memorial would help; they also discuss their fears about Agent Orange. Frankie believes possible exposure may have contributed to her miscarriage, though the story does not independently establish that cause. She decides to go.

On November 13, Frankie, Barb and Ethel march in fatigues alongside other veterans to the Wall, where Frankie observes the names of the fallen, including eight nurses. Although initially intending not to attend, her parents surprise her at the memorial. Together they find Finley's name, and Connor finally admits his guilt for how he treated Frankie after Vietnam, apologizes and recognizes her military service. A fellow veteran thanks her for nursing. Then Frankie unexpectedly reunites with Jamie Callahan, whom she believed had died during evacuation. He survived severe injuries, has a prosthetic leg and brings the little gray stone she gave him. Now divorced, he tells her he named a daughter Frances and that remembering her helped him endure his recovery. The novel ends with Frankie and Jamie reunited, holding hands, and Frankie's determination to make women's wartime service visible.