It is 2027, and with the country embroiled in multiple international conflicts, a draft has been instituted in the United States. When Tenley Ward's nineteen-year-old son draws a low lottery number, she mobilizes fellow PTA mothers in Dallas, Texas, to form the anti-draft organization MOMS-Mothers Opposing More Senselessness.
As the clock ticks down to her son being called up, Tenley is torn between her duties on the home front--three younger children and a husband who resents her time away from the family--and the need to propel MOMS into the national spotlight. Enter new volunteer Lance Corporal Leland Marks, nicknamed Privately, a Marine veteran who is struggling to adjust to life at home after combat. Privately is drawn to MOMS' message, as well as its beautiful and charismatic leader, and though he is young enough to be her son, Tenley can't deny the fireworks between them.
As they work together to try to garner more support for the organization before the president, currently on a national tour, arrives in Dallas in three weeks' time, Tenley and Privately grapple with both their personal demons and their own growing attraction to each other. Neither is sure what the future holds--not for the war, the draft, or even their own next steps--but what they do know is that meeting each other has changed everything.
Unpacking the contradictions of motherhood, the devastation of grief, the blind spots of privilege, the fuel of desire, and one's own purpose, Safekeeping is a thoughtful, poignant novel that will remain with you long after the last page is turned.