Page 152 of The Book of Summer

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, it was properly awful.”

Ruby didn’t admit to the details. Sam’s mother died of a heart attack. His father, a gunshot wound to the head. He couldn’t face life as a widower, or as the father to one son killed in battle, and a second son who wasn’t allowed to battle anymore.

“Would you care to contact him?” Mary asked. “Sam? Now that Caroline’s arrived? Whatever he’s become, he would want to meet his daughter. He loved his family. He’d love her.”

“The man was not short on love, giving or receiving.”

Ruby set Cissy down and grabbed a cigarette. She offered one to Mary, who waved her away.

“I quit ages ago,” she said. “As it happens, smoking would be a great habit to have when you’re at war. I often regret that unforeseen bout of healthfulness.”

Ruby laughed.

“Are you truly ready?” Mary said. “To surrender the idea of a genuine family?”

“I’m not sure that I have a choice. And some days Idowant Sam here, with us. Yet others I think, to hell with him. Wearea family. She and I.”

Ruby took a big old smack of her cigarette.

“A girl should have her father, if she can,” Mary said.

“I don’t disagree,” Ruby said, thinking of her own. “But even if I wanted to find him, I wouldn’t know where to look.”

Mary nodded slowly and let her eyes drift out to the grass beyond.

“I’ve been keeping track,” Mary said after some time. “Of Sam. Just in case.”

“What?!” Ruby gasped.

She nearly dropped her smoke onto Cissy’s head.

“Just in case,” Mary repeated. “It’s not that difficult to learn such things, with my position in the armed forces.”

Ruby looked at her cross-eyed. What kind of dirt could an army gal gin up on a guy booted from the navy?

“I know some folks in intelligence,” Mary added.

Unbeknownst to Ruby, Mary had met an intelligence officer here and there and even engaged in a brief fling with one. But most of her intelligence on Sam Packard came from a plucky news reporter in Manhattan who made it her job to keep tabs on him.

“Okay, then,” Ruby said and cleared her throat. “Is he well?”

“Relatively speaking,” Mary explained. “He was in San Francisco for a while, then hanging around the Seven Seas locker room in San Diego. Last check had him in New York City staying at the Sloane House YMCA and drinking—a lot—at the Pink Elephant in Times Square. ‘Well’ might be a subjective term, but he is alive and, er,activein whatever city he lands.”

“Wow,” Ruby said. “Wow.”

She could find him. If she wanted to. Of course, whether she wanted to was the very question.

Ruby craved her old life and her old Sam, no question. More than that, she longed for a real family, since the vagaries of Ruby’s woman parts meant Cissy would be an only child. And Ruby knew from experience that a life without siblings was a lonely one. The least she could do was give her sweet sprite a dad.

“Whaddya think?” Mary asked. “Want me to track him down?”

“Maybe,” Ruby said, and glanced at Cissy. “Maybe. It’s just too damned hard to decide.”

***

They stood on the bright white driveway, two bags at their feet. Mary had on her full dress uniform: a light beige skirt, a darker beige jacket. A taxi rumbled on the street.