She reached into the drawer where she kept things like buttons and needles and took one of the invitations from a small stack. She carefully blotted her lipstick on the inside, and then looked at it. There was a clear impression of her lips. She knew it was a corny thing to do, but she didn’t care. She took the ballpoint pen lying next to her shopping list and wrote on the invitation, “Date at seven a.m.?” beneath the red kiss. She could feel herself blushing as she closed the invitation and put it in its small envelope and pushed it under the coffee thermos. She knew that would keep him awake. She shut and latched the lunch box.

Jack came into the kitchen and gave her a gentle hug and a kiss on the back of her neck. She shivered and spun around to face him. “Your lunch is ready,” she said. He was wearing the blue pullover shirt she had bought him a week ago. It looked great on him. “Be careful,” she said. “Keep your eyes open and stay alert.”

“No argument from me,” he said. “But it should be an easy night. After a couple of hours they’ll all be locked in their cells, and most of them will be asleep by midnight.”

She kissed him, then pointed at the wall clock above the kitchen table. “You’d better get going.”

She watched him lift the hanger from the coat hook on the door. It held his uniform, all starched and pressed by the cleaners: the tan short-sleeve shirt suitable for July 19 and the razor-creased green pants. The embroidered patches on the shoulders made him look like he was an important man.

“See you in the morning.”

“Bye,” she said. She got a little pleasure out of making it sound routine. In a few hours he’d open the little invitation and learn what she’d been thinking.

2

It was evening. The Weldonville Federal Penitentiary was down and quiet now, the head count finished and the inmates in their cells for the rest of the night. The day-shift guards were on their way to their cars, and the relief process was complete.