coloring on the linoleum floor, unaware that the adults had been living with a knot in their stomachs since the war began. Ruth told Jack that his sister loved him. She told him his father was fine. She told him to eat something besides the candy bars he claimed were the best part of military life. When he said he had to go, she asked him to call again as soon as possible. He promised. It was an ordinary promise. That was what made it so difficult to live with afterward.
Jack's father, Edward, was a diesel mechanic who could recognize a failing transmission by the sound it made half a mile away. He owned one good suit, three winter jackets, and a wristwatch he had bought with the first paycheck he earned after marrying Ruth. When Jack enlisted, Edward removed the watch and laid it on the kitchen table between them. Its case was worn at the edges, its black leather strap softened by decades of engine oil and summer sweat. “A man needs something that reminds him when it's time to come home,” Edward said, as if time were the one thing the Army couldn't provide. Jack rolled his eyes and pretended it was an embarrassing gift. That night Ruth saw him standing under the porch light, turning the watch toward the stars to read its face.
Seven weeks after the telephone call, two uniformed officers drove down the gravel lane. Ruth saw the government sedan through the window and knew before the men reached the porch. Later, she could remember useless details with terrible clarity: one of them had mud on his shoe; the kitchen clock was three minutes slow; Claire had left a yellow crayon beside the sugar bowl. She could not remember which officer spoke first. She only knew that her son had died during a convoy accident in the desert, and that the soldiers at the door spoke of his service with respectful voices that did not tell her what had actually happened.
A folded flag arrived. So did Jack's footlocker, his spare uniforms, a few photographs, and the letters he had never mailed. The watch was missing. Edward checked every pocket twice and then went through the box again after Ruth had gone to bed. They wrote to the Army property office. Someone answered that no watch had been included in the recovered effects. They wrote a second letter, then a third. Another response explained that personal items were sometimes lost in combat conditions. Ruth taped the letter to the inside of the cupboard door because she could not bear to throw it away and could not bear to read it again.
At the funeral, men from Jack's unit stood in a cold Ohio wind and spoke about his courage, but they offered no details. One young soldier with a bandaged arm approached Ruth after the service, opened his mouth, and then closed it. His eyes filled with tears.