The Summer Before Boys by Nora Raleigh Baskin

killed.
    On March 29, 1918, there was a small mention from the Associated Press from Paris. The headline read: AMERICAN WOMAN KILLED .
    Pam always kept a bench piled with newspapers by the door to her gift shop. Sometimes guests requested a particular paper bedelivered for the week of their stay. But she always had The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and I always avoided looking at them.
    â€œHi, girls,” Pam greeted us. “Hot enough for you?” She was fanning herself with a magazine. It was early. Monday morning, the hotel was still quiet and mostly empty. Voices were low. Eliza and I had gotten a ride with Uncle Bruce. After a whole Sunday of doing nothing, even Eliza was anxious to get out of the house.
    â€œYup,” Eliza answered. “It’s hot enough.”
    â€œMaybe you two could take a paddle boat out. Before the guests get up,” Pam suggested.
    â€œYeah, let’s do that,” I said, poking around the gifts and souvenirs.
    Eliza looked at me. “But just a second ago you said you didn’t feel like it.”
    She was right. I had nixed every idea Eliza had come up with if I didn’t think it would somehow increase our chances of running into Michael. But now it seemed like a good idea. Besides, it would use up time until lunch, I thought—until Michael was done working in the stables. He told me he helped his dad every morning before lunch and then the rest of the day was his. He was free. He always went swimming in the afternoons. That I knew already. I made sure Eliza and I had our bathing suits on under our shorts.
    â€œWell, now I do. Do you feel like it?” I asked Eliza. I put down the glass globe with the miniature version of the hotel inside and turned back to the counter.
    I didn’t want to glance at the newspapers. But there it was.
    US MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ WAR AT 1,486
    At first it didn’t even make sense. The number was so big, so huge. I couldn’t imagine one thousand people. I couldn’t imagine five hundred. It was hard to see a hundred people in my mind at once. There were twenty-three kids in my class last year. Eighty in the grade. Two hundred and fifty in the whole school.
    What did one thousand, four hundred and eighty-six feel like? Sound like? One thousand, four hundred and eighty-six pine coffins? One thousand, four hundred and eighty-six American flags? More than a thousand empty spaces at the dinner table. Tens of thousands of books left unread? Millions of pieces of clothing, shoes, and gloves left in closets. What happened to all that stuff?
    It was too much.
    No brain could hold that all. No one could see all those faces, and shoes, and dinner plates, bedtime stories, and kisses.
    So I didn’t.
    It was just a huge, ridiculous number and so it meant nothing to me at all. Was I still staring at the newspaper?
    US MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ WAR AT 1,486
    No, it didn’t even register.
    Eliza looked at Pam and Pam looked at me. But I had gotten used to not seeing things that were right in front of my face.
    I was fine.
    â€œSo is it too early for ice cream?” Pam said, maybe a little more loudly than she needed to.
    I picked a Fudgesicle from the freezer because it felt most like breakfast since we hadn’t eaten anything yet. Eliza was about to take the same thing until I reminded her not to be a copycat and she took a vanilla Drumstick, which looked like the better choice after all but I couldn’t change my mind now. I’d look like a baby.
    â€œThanks, Pam,” Eliza said.
    â€œThanks,” I echoed and I held the door for Eliza to go first.
    The gift shop was air-conditioned but the hotel itself was not. And it had been cool outside early this morning when Uncle Bruce was ready to leave—we both wore sweatshirts—but already the air in the hallway was still and warm. Our ice creams seemed to feel the heat first and instantly soften.
    â€œIt’s going to be a