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normally pasty skin was lobster red —an Irish suntan .
    Kate had yet to meet Patrick Murphy when she watched the first draft lottery on television. She was in the living room with her family. Cold wind tapped against the windowpanes. Kate had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her grandmother had remarked that the whole horrible process reminded her of that carnival game—what was it called?
    “Bingo,” Kate had supplied, thinking it was closer to the Shirley Jackson short story.
    Instead of numbered balls, there were 366 blue capsules. Inside each capsule was a slip of paper. On each slip of paper was written a number that corresponded to a month and day of the calendar year. All the sealed capsules were mixed together in a box, then they were dropped into a large glass jar that was so deep that the man doing the drawing had to stretch to reach the capsules with the tips of his fingers.
    The system was simple: as each capsule was drawn, a draft number was assigned, starting at one and working up to 366, which accounted for leap years. All males born between 1944 and 1950 were eligible for conscription. The month and day of your birth determined your draft number. The lower your number, the more likely you were to be drafted. A second lottery employed all twenty-six letters of the alphabet to determine the priority, by last name, for each date of birth.
    September 14th was the first date that was drawn. When it was read aloud, there was a horrible cry from the kitchen. They later found out that Mary Jane, their housekeeper, had a grandson who was born on September 14th.
    In the space of a few hours, every boy Kate knew had been assigned a number. No one understood what they meant—when the groups would be called up, where they would be sent, in which branch they would serve, if they were to serve at all. Lower numbers were obviously bad, but how high was high enough to be safe?
    Patrick Murphy and his family were asking the same questions on the other side of town. Their TV set was black-and-white. They had noidea the capsules were blue. What they did know was that by the end of the broadcast, their sons had been assigned numbers. Declan came in at 98, Patrick at 142.
    Of course, Kate didn’t know any of this until much later. She met Patrick in April of ’71, a little over a year after that first lottery. Kate was outside Lenox Mall, bored to death as she waited in her car for the tow truck to arrive. Her battery was dead; she’d left the lights on while she was shopping. Patrick gave her a charge. She was aware of the double entendre. So was he. He referred to it incessantly. Kate’s irritation didn’t stop him from flirting, which was even more irritating, then through attrition somewhat flattering, and then somehow kind of intoxicating, and then it was late enough for dinner, so—why not?
    Patrick was twenty-one years old, the same as her. He had a brother already serving. His father was a lawyer. He was studying to be an engineer, which seemed like one of those essential jobs you were always hearing about, like doctor or lawyer or son-of-a-politician. Patrick was none of these. He was a big Irish Mick with a seemingly high draft number who’d just met the girl of his dreams.
    They had been together just over fifteen months when he got called up. His father wasn’t connected, but Kate’s was. Patrick refused to allow favors to be called in. He didn’t think it was right. And he was right that it wasn’t right, but by then they were married and Kate was furious at her stupid, stubborn husband. She’d refused to see him off for basic training. When they’d kissed goodbye at the door, Kate had held on to him so tightly that he’d warned her she was going to break a rib.
    She wanted to break all of his ribs. She wanted to scratch out one of his eyes. She wanted to take a pipe wrench to his knee, a bat to his head. But she had let him go, because in the end, that was all she could do.
    She was in love,