| OCR Text |
Show CHAPTER FOUR It was that October-the October of her senior year, while she was waiting for Katie to go to the doctor-that missile pads were discovered in Cuba. Every day when she got home from school, she turned on the news. There was a Soviet ship whose crated missiles were visible right there on the screen, approaching-it seemed as if the ship were going to cruise right into the front room itself. President Kennedy said the ship would be boarded if necessary. There was talk of nuclear war. It distracted her from her life at home, from being around Katie, and in this way, this great diversion was almost welcome at first. At school, the nuns conducted extra prayers for the President's guidance. The kids came home from their grammar school telling of air raid drills. Of huddling against the hall walls, their heads down, with their hands clasped over their necks. And in the shopping center when she went for groceries, people stopped before television sets, small groups gathered. There had never been such a time. Maybe the world was coming to an end. She did not really believe that. Not really. The idea of the world coming to an end had always been a joke. A metaphor. A hyperbole. Something that stood for something else: not the thing itself. To think otherwise was-unthinkable. But again, she had never lived through a time like this. What did it all mean? She wasn't sure. But there were people who seemed to know. In the diocese were a good many Eastern European |
