The Gift

“Some do. Some don't. Some can't. We just have to love them while we can, and learn whatever we're meant to from them.”

“What about us?” he asked, strangely serious for a sixteen-year-old boy. But she was a serious young woman. “Do you suppose we're meant to learn something from each other?”

“Maybe. Maybe we need each other right now,” she said wisely.

“You've already taught me a lot about Annie, about letting go, about loving her wherever she is now, and taking her with me.”

“You've helped me too,” Maribeth said warmly, but not explaining how, and he wondered. And as they drove toward the lake, she felt the baby move again. It had fluttered a number of times since the first time she'd felt it and it was getting to be a familiar and friendly feeling. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before and she liked it.

When they reached the lake, Tommy spread out a blanket he had brought, and Maribeth carried the picnic. She had made egg salad sandwiches, which he said he loved, and chocolate cake, and brought a bagful of fruit, a bottle of milk, which she seemed to drink a lot of these days, and some sodas. They were both hungry and decided to eat right away, and then they lay on the blanket and talked again for a long time, about school this time, and some of his friends, their parents, and their plans. Tommy said he had been to California once, with his dad, to look at produce there, and Florida for the same reason. She had never been anywhere, and said she'd love to see New York and Chicago. And both of them said they would love to see Europe, but Maribeth thought it unlikely she ever would. She had no way to get anywhere in her life, except here, and even this had been a great adventure for her.

They talked about the Korean war too, and the people they knew who had died. It seemed crazy to both of them that they were engaged in another war so soon after the last one. They both remembered when Pearl Harbor had been hit, they had been four. Tommy's father had been too old to enlist, but Maribeth's father had been at Iwo Jima. Her mother had worried the whole time he was gone, but eventually he had come home safely.

“What would you do if you were drafted to go to war?” she asked, and he looked confused by the question.

“Now, you mean? Or when I'm eighteen?” It was a possibility, and only two years away for him, if the police action in Korea wasn't settled.

“Whenever. Would you go?”

Of course. I'd have to.”

“I wouldn't, if I were a man. I don't believe in war,” she said firmly, while he smiled. Sometimes she was funny. She had such definite ideas, and some of them were pretty crazy.

“That's because you're a girl. Men don't have a choice.”

“Maybe they should. Or maybe they will one day. Quakers don't go to war. I think they're smarter than everyone.”

“Maybe they're just scared,” he said, accepting all the traditions he'd ever known, but Maribeth was not willing to accept them. She didn't accept many things, unless she truly believed them.

“I don't think they're scared. I think they're true to themselves and what they believe. I'd refuse to go to war if I were a man,” Maribeth said stubbornly. “War is stupid.”

“No, you wouldn't,” Tommy grinned. “You'd fight, like everyone else. You'd have to.”

“Maybe one day men won't just do what they 'have to.' Maybe they'll question it, and not just do what they're told to.”

“I doubt that. And if they did, it would be chaos. Why should some men go and not others? What would they do? Run away? Hide somewhere? It's impossible, Maribeth. Leave wars to guys. They know what they're doing.”

“That's the trouble. I don't think they do. They just get us into new wars every time they get bored. Look at this one. We just got out of the last one, and we're back in the soup again,” she said disapprovingly, and he laughed.

“Maybe you should run for president,” he teased, but he respected her ideas, and her willingness to be adventuresome in her thinking. There was something very courageous about her.

They decided to go for a walk around the lake then, and on the way back, he asked her if she wanted to go swimming. But she declined again, and he was curious why she never wanted to join him. There was a raft far out in the lake, and he wanted her to swim to it with him, but she just didn't want to do it.

“Come on, tell the truth,” he said finally, “are you afraid of the water? It's no shame if you are. Just say it.”

“I'm not. I just don't want to swim.” She was a good swimmer, but there was no way she was going to take her father's shirt off.