After watching news of mass arrests of anti-war protesters and footage of Gold Star Mothers and Kent State, Frankie pressed Barb to accompany her to a POW/MIA fundraiser for Navy wives. Despite Barb’s reluctance, they went to the Hay-Adams Hotel, passing ongoing protests and police barricades, and entered a luncheon under a banner reading “Don’t Let Them Be Forgotten.” Frankie bought tickets and they joined a room of well-dressed women.

Anne Jenkins, a Navy wife from San Diego with a husband imprisoned in Hoa Lo, addressed the group. She condemned the government’s unreliable MIA/KIA reports and recounted cases like Jane Adon’s, where presumed KIA might in fact be alive in Hanoi. Anne said political leaders had been ignorant of POW/MIA terms as recently as 1970, but allies like Senator Bob Dole were now engaged. She called for an organized effort—letters, interviews, and pressure—to identify POWs and bring them home, and the room responded with applause and promises to help.

When Anne reached their table, Frankie and Barb identified themselves as former Army nurses. Recognizing Frankie as Bette and Connor McGrath’s daughter from Coronado, Anne praised Bette’s fundraising and, in conversation, casually revealed Bette had suffered a stroke. Shocked, Frankie immediately tried calling home, learned from Connor’s secretary that Bette was hospitalized, and flew to San Diego.

At the new medical center, Frankie entered the ICU and found Bette unconscious on a ventilator after an intracranial hemorrhage, with respiratory failure. Connor arrived, and though he admitted he had not called out of fear, Frankie reassured him. Over two days, Frankie remained by Bette’s bedside, befriended the ICU nurses, read aloud, and cared for her mother while Connor split time between work and the hospital.

During an early-morning readiness test, the ICU team weaned Bette off sedation and extubated her; Bette began breathing on her own and slowly woke. Frankie and Connor took their places at her sides, and Bette managed slurred but affectionate words, even teasing Frankie about her hair, signaling hope for recovery.

Days later, Frankie wrote Barb and Ethel from Coronado that Bette was out of the hospital but still needed support, that she would stay indefinitely, and that she had quit her Charlottesville job and asked for her belongings to be sent. Barb replied that she would pursue work with Operation Breadbasket in Atlanta and predicted Ethel’s boyfriend Noah might propose now that the housemates had dispersed.

Back home, Frankie tended to Bette in a downstairs guest room, managing post-stroke challenges like aphasia, fatigue, and vertigo. Frankie and Connor cautiously addressed their estrangement; Frankie apologized for past harsh words and restored Finley’s photo to the family’s heroes’ wall. Connor then walked Frankie to a nearby beach bungalow, explaining that Bette had insisted it be kept as Frankie’s “safe place” and that he added a convertible Mustang. He handed Frankie the keys.

Alone in the cottage, Frankie explored the warmly furnished rooms and felt a deep exhale of relief, sensing that having a home of her own might be what she needed to rebuild her life.