But tonight, Jean didn't turn on the lights. She just sat in the dark, feeling breathless and stifled in the killing heat, listening to train after train come by until they stopped and then started again just before the dawn. Jean even watched the sun come up. She wondered if she would ever be able to breathe normally again, or lie down without feeling as though she were being smothered. There were days when it was really very trying and the heat and the train didn't help. It was almost eight o'clock in the morning when she heard the knock on her door, and assumed it was Mrs. Weissman. She put her pink bathrobe on, and with a tired sigh padded toward the front door in bare feet. Thank God she only had four weeks to go. She was beginning to think she couldn't take it for much longer.

“Hi.…” She pulled the door open with a tired smile, expecting to see her friend, and blushed to find herself looking into the face of a stranger, a stranger in a brown uniform with a cap and mustard colored braid, holding a yellow envelope toward her. She looked at him, uncomprehending, not wanting to understand because she knew only too well what that meant, and the man seemed to be leering at her. It was as though his face was distorted as she reeled from the shock and the heat, clutching the envelope and tearing it open without saying a word to him. And it was there, just as she had feared, and she looked at the messenger of death again, focusing on the words on his uniform as her mouth formed a scream, and she sank to his feet in a quiet heap on the floor, as he gaped at her in silent horror, and then suddenly called out for help. He was sixteen years old and he had never been that close to a pregnant woman before. Two doors opened across the hall, and a moment later, there was the sound of running feet on the stairs above, and Mrs. Weissman was putting damp cloths on Jean's head, as the boy backed slowly away and then hurried down the stairs. All he wanted to do was get out of the stifling little building. Jean was moaning by then, and Mrs. Weissman and two other ladies were leading her to the couch where she slept now. It was the same couch where the baby had been conceived, where she had lain and made love with Andy … Andy … Andy.… “We regret to inform you … your husband died in the service of his country … killed in action at Guadalcanal … in action … in action…” her head was reeling and she couldn't see the faces.

“Jean … ? Jean.…” They kept calling her name, and there was something cold on her face, as they looked at her and at each other. Helen Weissman had read the telegram, and had quickly shown it to the others. “Jean.…” She came around slowly, barely able to breathe, and they helped her to sit and forced her to drink a little water. She looked blankly at Mrs. Weiss-man, and then suddenly she remembered, and the sobs strangled her more than the heat, and she couldn't catch her breath anymore, all she could do was cry and cling to the old woman who held her … he was dead … just like the others … like Mommy and Daddy and Ruthie … gone … he was gone … she would never see him again … she whimpered almost like a small child, feeling a weight in her heart that she had never felt before, even for the others. “It's all right, dear, it's all right.…” But they all knew that it wasn't, and never would be again, not for poor Andy.

The others went back to their apartments a little while later, but Helen Weissman stayed. She didn't like the glazed look in the girl's eyes, the way she sat and stared and then suddenly began to sob, or the terrible endless crying she heard that night when she finally left Jean for a little while, and then returned to open the unlocked door and check on her again as she had all day. She had even called Jean's doctor before he left his office, and he had told Mrs. Weissman to tell Jean how sorry he was to hear the news, and warned her that Jean could go into labor from the shock, which was exactly what she was afraid of, and it was exactly what she suspected when she saw Jean press her fists into her back several times later that evening, and walk restlessly around the tiny apartment, as though it had grown too small for her in the past few hours. Her entire world had shattered around her, and there was nowhere left to go. There wasn't even a body to send home … just the memory of a tall, handsome blond boy … and the baby in her belly.

“Are you all right?” Helen Weissman's accent made Jean smile. She had been in the country for forty years, but she still spoke with a heavy German accent. She was a wise, warm woman, and she was fond of Jean. She had lost her own husband thirty years before, and she had never remarried. She had three children in New York, who visited her from time to time, mostly to drop their respective children off so she could baby-sit, and a son who had a good job in Chicago. “You have pains?” Her eyes searched Jean's, and Jean started to shake her head. Her whole body ached after the day of crying, and yet inside she felt numb. She didn't know what she felt, just achy and hot and restless. She arched her back as though to stretch it.

“I'm all right. Why don't you get some sleep, Mrs. Weissman?” Her voice was hoarse after the long day of crying. She glanced at the kitchen clock and registered the fact that it had been fifteen hours since she had gotten the telegram telling her about Andy … fifteen hours, it felt like fifteen years … a thousand years … she walked around the room again as Helen Weissman watched her.

“You want to go for a walk outside?” The train whizzed past nearby and Jean shook her head. It was too hot to go for a walk, even at eleven o'clock at night. And suddenly Jean was even hotter than she'd been all day.

“I think I'll have something cold to drink.” She fixed herself a glass of the lemonade she kept in a pitcher in the icebox, and it tasted good going down, but it came back up almost as quickly. She rushed to the bathroom, where she threw up and retched repeatedly, and then emerged wanly a little while later.

“You should lie down.” Meekly, she agreed. She was more uncomfortable when she did. It was easier to sit up than lie down, so she tried the comfortable old green chair again, but after a few minutes she found that she couldn't do that either. She had gnawing pains in her lower back and an unsettled feeling in her stomach, and Helen Weissman left her alone again at midnight, but only after insisting that Jean come and get her during the night if she had a problem. But Jean was sure she wouldn't have to. She turned off the lights, and sat alone in the silent apartment, thinking of her husband … Andy … of the big green eyes and straight blond hair … track star … football hero … her first and only love … the boy she had fallen head over heels in love with the first time she saw him, and as she thought of him, she felt a shaft of pain slice through her from her belly to her back, and then again, and again, and yet again, so that she couldn't catch her breath at all now. She stood up unsteadily, nausea overwhelming her, but determined to get to the bathroom, where she clung miserably to the toilet for almost an hour, the pains pounding her body, the retching tearing at her soul, until weakly at last, barely conscious, she began calling for Andy. It was there that Helen Weissman found her at one thirty in the morning. She had decided to check on her once more before going to bed. It was too hot for anyone to sleep that night, so she was awake unusually late. And she thanked God that she was, when she found her. She went back to her own apartment just long enough to call Jean's doctor and the police, who promised to send an ambulance at once. She climbed into a cotton housedress, grabbed her purse, kept the same sandals on her feet, and hurried back to Jean, to drape a bathrobe around her shoulders, and ten minutes later, they heard the sirens. Helen did, but Jean seemed to hear nothing at all as she retched and cried, and Helen Weissman tried to soothe her. She was writhing with pain and calling Andy's name by the time they reached New York Hospital, and the baby didn't take long to come after that. The nurses whisked Jean away on a gurney, and they didn't have time to give her anything at all, before the wiry five-pound four-ounce little girl emerged with jet black hair, and tightly clenched fists, wailing loudly. Helen Weiss-man saw them both barely an hour later. Jean mercifully drugged at last, the baby dozing comfortably.

And she went back to the apartment house that night, thinking of the lonely years Jean Roberts had ahead, bringing up her baby girl alone, a widow at twenty-two. Helen brushed the tears from her cheek as the elevated train roared by at four thirty that morning. The older woman knew what kind of devotion it would take to bring the child up alone, a kind of religious zeal, a solitary passion to do all for this baby that would never know her father.

Jean gazed at her baby the next morning when they brought her to nurse for the first time: she looked down at the tiny face, the dark silky hair that the nurses said would fall out eventually, and she knew instinctively what she would have to do for her. It didn't frighten Jean at all. This was what she had wanted. Andy's baby. This was his last gift to her, and she would guard her with her life, do all she could, give her only the best. She would live and breathe and work and do, and give her very soul to this baby.

The tiny rosebud mouth worked as she nursed and Jean smiled at the unfamiliar feeling. She couldn't believe that it was twenty-four hours since she had learned of Andy's death, as a nurse came into the room to check on them both. They seemed to be doing fine, and the baby was a good size, considering that she'd been almost four weeks early.

“Looks like she has a good appetite.” The woman in the starched white uniform and cap glanced at mother and child. “Has her daddy seen her yet?” They couldn't know … no one did … except Jean, and Helen Weissman. Her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head as the nurse patted her arm, not understanding. No, her daddy hadn't seen her yet, and he never would. “What are you going to name her?”