I was twenty-one when my college sweetheart, Thomas, disappeared during the Vietnam War. I was seventy-six when a stranger approached me at the airport holding an old photograph of us. “My grandfather asked me to find you,” he said. “His name is Thomas, and he’s alive.”

Thomas and I had fallen in love in college. He was an engineering student who teased me for studying literature, and I joked that engineers made terrible boyfriends. We planned to marry after graduation. Before he deployed, he promised, “I’ll buy you a proper engagement ring when I get back.” Six months later, military officers informed me that his aircraft had disappeared. No body was found, and his status remained missing in action.