The Book of Summer

They rumbled up to the Norfolk station at 2:05 p.m. Ruby hailed a taxi and rode the short distance to the hospital. She read they’d doubled, or even tripled, the facility in the past eighteen months, but did not expect the sprawling, white hospital before her. Everything suddenly felt more serious.

A convoluted pathway of interlocking buildings and corridors led Ruby to Sam’s ward. The place was crowded, busy, teeming with staff knocking this way and that. She didn’t encounter many patients, thank God, when winding her way to the guy in charge, of Sam’s health at least.

“Hello there,” Ruby said brightly to a young nurse manning a desk.

She was a doll, this one, and so were the others. Mary was going to fit into this nursing gig about as well as a rotten tooth in a gleaming set of chompers.

“My name is Ruby Packard,” she said as the girl smiled prettily. “I’m here to visit my husband, who’s recuperating on this ward. His name is Sam Packard. Lieutenant Packard, that is.”

Ruby didn’t know if wives showed up at that hospital, as a rule. Daddy had pulled a few strings, turned a few levers, promised a few golf balls, to get Ruby so quickly on the books. Was she a common sight? Or would they be a-twitter about her presence the second she turned her back? Ruby found she didn’t expressly care.

“Right-o!” the girl said, and stood with a burst. “The doctor is expecting you. Let me see if he’s ready.”

The nurse rapped on the door behind her, then poked her head inside, looking quite like the back end of an ostrich. Ruby tried to avoid staring directly into her tail, but the room was dang small.

“Yes, ma’am,” the nurse said, her whole person returned to the room. “He can see you now.” She cocked her head to the left. “Good luck, honey. Just so ya know, a lot of them recover. And you might be the perfect cure.”

*

Ruby sat blinking at the man, trying not to seem befuddled by his words. She went to Smith for cripe’s sake, even took a biology class or two. A far cry from medical school but she was no dope even though she felt like one then.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” the man asked again, this doctor with the round spectacles and thinning hair.

“The psychoneurosis…” Ruby started, concentrating as she tried to decipher the word, the first she’d heard it. “The war caused it?”

“It’s possible,” the doctor replied. “However, often we find it’s been there all along.”

“All along?” Ruby said with the hint of a scoff. “Doctor, I’m sure you’re a very smart man, and the folks at this facility quite well trained, but I’ve known Sam my entire life. We’re married. I’d know if that sort of thing was … lurking around.”

“You’d be surprised. In general, the psychoneurosis is a by-product of the underlying condition. In the unique environment of the armed forces, men with such predilections will sometimes develop psychosomatic disorders and work themselves into states of acute anxiety. This causes the psychoneurosis, and the resultant behaviors.”

“So then how do these people—”

These people. Other people. But not Sam. That was not her husband. It was, as the good doctor said, a “by-product.” Something to be fixed.

“How do these people get accepted?” Ruby asked. “Into the service? The exam sounded quite thorough.”

“It is. The problem is that many deny their abnormalities to induction examiners because they imagine the rigors of the environment can turn them around. Others plain haven’t acknowledged the truth.”

“Oh,” Ruby said lamely.

“In this case, based on extensive questioning and analysis, we believe your husband stretched the truth when entering the service.”

“You think he lied?” Ruby said, unsure whether she wanted to cry or scream or both.

Strong, she reminded herself. Your love for Sam will keep you strong.

“He’s never exhibited the slightest indication,” Ruby told the doctor. “And I’ve known him since we were children.”

“Yes, you mentioned that,” he said. “Perhaps we’re wrong and it’s a temporary lapse.”

“I’m sure that’s all…”

“I have to level with you, Mrs. Packard. A year ago, he’d have been sent his papers by now. A blue discharge, as it’s known. Not honorable, not dishonorable. But the lack of specificity is its own black mark. As I’m sure you’re aware, all employers ask to see military service records.”

“I’m not worried about Sam’s employment prospects.”

“Hmmm.” The doctor simpered as he looked her up and down. “I suppose not. The point is, he’s in a fortunate position because if we determine it’s an aberration, your husband can stay in the navy. A year ago it would’ve been an immediate discharge and even a stint at the brig. But we don’t have the luxury of squandering any borderline men who might prove fixable.”

“Borderline!”

“There simply aren’t enough to go around.”

“So I should pray he’s cured,” Ruby said, jaw tightening. “In hopes that you’ll be able to send him back out to fight? Another body to the war?”

“That’s the short of it.”

The doctor walloped his hands together and stood.

“Well, my dear, are you ready to see your husband?” he asked. “The good news is that a pretty wife is often a very reliable salve. Here. Follow me.”

*

Mary was right, the wench.

Sam looked as he always had. A little thinner, and tanner, but given the horrors one could see in a military hospital, Sam might as well have been starring in a cigarette ad. He was handsomer than ever.

“My Sam,” Ruby said, her hands cupping his face as tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh Sam, what have they done to you?”

“I’m sorry, Ruby, my love,” he said through his own tears.

“No. No apologies allowed.”

“Did they tell you?” Sam asked, wincing as he spoke.

“Yes. But never mind all that. This war, it goofs up people’s heads. That’s what happened, isn’t it? The fighting? All those months at sea? It’s polluting your thoughts.”

Sam bowed his head, hesitating, taking a beat. At once Ruby realized the crunch he was in. The doctor said it himself. If this was a slip in character, a brief crack-up to be patched, that meant Sam could return to battle. The nightmare would begin anew.

But if it were a permanent affliction, he could go home.

“Incidentally, I don’t give a fig about blue discharges or marred service records or any of that garbage,” Ruby said. “If this ‘condition’ can send you home for good, then by God I’ll accept it, a thousand times over and multiply that by two.”

“No,” Sam said, eyes wide with alarm. “Don’t talk like that!”

Ruby glanced around. Silly girl. They were in a military hospital, for the love of jam. It was no place to admit one’s secret desire to scotch the service.

“Gotcha,” Ruby said with a wink and a nod—literal, that is. “I get it.”

Another wink.

Sam looked at her cross-eyed.

“No, Ruby, it’s not like that.” He sighed. “I want to go back. This joint. It’s making me bonkers.”

“Of course it is!”

It was a psycho ward, after all. Naturally, Ruby wasn’t eager to remind him.

“Who could blame you?” she said. “I’m jumpy and I’ve been here all of fifteen minutes.”

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