Hattie’s son Franklin is on a mission in Saigon in 1969. While the other men in his squad plant mines on beach, Franklin stands watch, tasked with surveying the bay for enemy vessels. He drinks too much, so cannot be trusted with the delicate work of seeding the sand with explosives.

As Franklin squints out at the dark water after nightfall, one murky shape assumes a sinister aspect. Staring at it, Franklin grows certain it is an enemy submarine. He fears he will not survive the mission and thinks of his wife, whom he hasn’t seen for over a year. Recollections of his broken marriage alternate with Franklin’s first-person account of the beach-mining mission.

Franklin first saw Sissy at the beach when he was 19 and she was 22. He learned where she lived and planned to impress her with his uncle’s Cadillac and his manners. When she answered his knock at her door, all he could think to ask was if they “couldn’t go out walking one evening” (166). She agreed, and they married six months later.

Franklin began staying out all night, drinking and gambling. During one game, a fellow gambler had nothing left to bet but his sister. Franklin won and took the girl.