Page 57 of The Book of Summer

“Har har, very funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

“Samuel Packard.” Ruby drew him close, pulling his body flush with hers. “You can go back to fussing about Nazism tomorrow. For tonight, let’s focus on children, and the nifty time we can have making them.”

Ruby wanted a baby, a miraculous creation that was hers and Sam’s alone. But there was more to her wish. A little nugget would render Sam 3-A: a man with a dependent and therefore draft-deferred. Ruby had been studying that damned chart since it came into effect days before. She was downright bedeviled with noodling out where each person she loved might fall.

“Whaddya say?” Ruby gave him a nudge. “Do we have a deal, sport?”

Sam chuckled dryly. A searchlight passed over his dark and handsome face, and Ruby felt a kick to her heart. Just like her Smith pals used to say, he was movie-star gorgeous, one hundred percent.

“Sam?” Ruby said, tentatively.

“I’d love to have babies,” he said, returning his gaze to hers. “I’d love ten of them!”

“Well, now that sounds excessive. We’re not Catholic.”

“But we can’t start a family yet. It’s a scary world and I don’t want to bring an innocent babe into it. Things must settle down first.”

“Settle down?!That could take years!”

“That it could,” he agreed.

“I want to start our livesnow.Why must we wait for the outcome of some skirmish in Europe?”

“Ruby, I want a family. I do. But…”

Sam’s words petered out and his entire body slumped. He looked like he was carrying a heavy load that only he could see.

“You’re not going to enlist, are you?” Ruby said, breath clambering around her chest. “Sam, you can’t. I know you want to help, and your heart is the biggest thing going, but only a crazy person would enlist. Someone who is well and truly bonkers.”

“Nearly twenty million men registered for the draft last year,” he said. “So it’s not that crazy. Now we allhaveto register, Ruby. Every last one of us.”

“Then register! But wait to be called. You don’t go over there until they ask you to. Oh, God!” Ruby threw her head back. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You want to leave me for a fight.”

“Ruby.” Sam clamped his hands around hers. “I don’t want to leave, but it feels as though I should. Like a calling.”

“Then go over already,” Ruby said with a sniff.

“It’s not that simple. There’s you, of course.”

“Of course.” Ruby sniffed again and rolled her eyes.

“And to be honest… to be absolutely frank… I’m not sure I have it in me to fight. I’m afraid I’m not man enough.”

Ruby remained silent because, really, what could she say?

She didn’t agree—Sam was the best man she’d ever known—but Ruby was hardly compelled to convince him that he was combat-ready.

So without a word, Ruby embraced her husband and then turned back around just as the first plane appeared. A second joined it. Soon birds and animals and fish began fluttering down onto the boats, restaurants, and the merry people twirling in the streets. It was literally raining good cheer but all Ruby could think was,Damn, that’ll be a wreck to clean up.

***

“Don’t let the cat out of the bag just yet,” Mary said, an unaccustomed punch to her step as the three women walked down the road toward Sconset Casino.

It was late morning. The fog still hung round the shore; the briny air was damp and dense.

“What cat is this?” Ruby asked, cinching her coat.

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