Page 141 of The Book of Summer

***

Ruby unlocked the front door, glancing at the service flag as the latch clicked. Three blue stars. Inaccurate multiple ways and no doubt criminally unpatriotic. Truth be told, she was scared to make a change, as if righting the stars would invite ever more loss. It was silly, but Ruby wanted to hold to the losses they’d already had.

“Hello?” Ruby called, her voice echoing through the entryway.

She looked at the clock. Two hours she’d been away. Ruby’s eyes skipped to the stairs, then down toward the kitchen, her feet and heart unsure which way to tread.

“Hello?” she said again.

Footsteps pattered on the wood.

“Hello, Mrs. Packard.”

Mrs. Grimsbury appeared before her. The woman was back at Cliff House full-time on Daddy’s insistence, even though he didn’t know the half of it. Ruby protested but was pleased to have old Mrs. G. around. The woman didn’t talk much, but it was less lonely knowing she was in the home.

“Hi there,” Ruby said. “Sorry I’m late. I got caught up in town. How is everything?”

“Just fine. Nothing of note in today’s post. I saw the Western Union man but he made no stops on Baxter Road.”

“Thank God.”

Ruby exhaled. That they might live another day.

“I’ve made some tea,” Mrs. Grimsbury said. “And put out some cheese bobbies.”

“Thank you,” Ruby said. “And is—”

“In the library. Hasn’t moved all morning. Won’t give me a word.”

“I’m sorry. There’s no excuse for the rudeness.”

“Think nothing of it,” the woman said. “I understand.”

Some miracle, that. Mrs. Grimsbury was a pious sort. Ruby thanked her lucky stars for the woman’s mercy, for her penchant for acting like there wasn’t a problem beyond stubbornness and a touch of grump.

“Thank you,” Ruby said again.

She ventured toward the library, though she would’ve rather retreated outdoors. Oh, to spend the afternoon lounging in the veranda’s shade, sipping Mrs. Grimsbury’s superb tea.

At the library’s threshold, Ruby rapped gently on the door frame. The room was warm, dark, and still. Ruby knocked a second time. The lump on the chaise twitched in response. Her stomach tightened.

“Sweetheart?” she said.

Sam rolled over and turned toward his wife.

“Hi there,” she said with a smile.

He stared back vacantly, his face dull, his eyes glazed and bloodshot. Ruby held her lips together, her back ramrod-straight in the way of old Mary. She could not crumble. Ruby would not fall.

They’d been drilling it into their heads for years. The women needed to be strong while the men were away. And Lord, did Ruby ever try. But what the ads and the posters and Uncle Sam himself neglected to mention was you had to be doubly strong if and when the men returned.

***

Sam had been at Cliff House three months. He hadn’t wanted to return to Boston, so Ruby brought him to Sconset.

Some ninety days ago the navy determined that Sam’s transgressions were not onetime in nature, due to the definition of “one time.” Sam was now a diagnosed sexual psychopath and confirmed deviant, discharged by the armed forces for good.

But Sam was home! He was safe from fire and shells and German submarines. Ruby told herself this was enough, no matter the reason behind it. There was no black-and-white in this war, no right or wrong, simply a continuum of circumstances, a million spots where a line might’ve been breached.