Lone eagle

She had been dragging her feet about a summer job, because she knew she'd be showing by then, and as an unmarried mother, no one would want to hire her. She was thinking about staying at their house on Cape Cod until she had the baby. And in a few weeks she was going to advise Radcliffe that she would be taking a leave of absence, starting at Easter. It meant she wouldn't graduate with her class. But with luck, it would only cost her one semester. And she would have a great reward for it, if they would take her back. She would have to tell them why she was leaving. She wasn't the first woman it had happened to, and she had made her peace with it. She wondered what Joe would think of it when he found out. She wasn't going to tell him until he next came home, even if that meant her having the baby without his knowing. And she was such good friends with Andy now, she was almost sorry not to tell him. But she knew she couldn't. And he would probably be shocked when he heard. She worried at times now that he would think less of her once he found out. But it was a price she was prepared to pay.

“So what are you doing this summer, Kate? The Red Cross again?”

“Probably,” she said vaguely, but he didn't notice that she was distracted. She looked better than she had in February, and he was trying to convince her to go to a movie with him. She went with him occasionally, more so now that he had given up on her as a potential date, and accepted her as a friend. But she had a paper due the next day, and said that this time she couldn't go with him.

“You're no fun. Well, at least I'm glad you're looking better. You looked like death the last time I saw you.” The nausea was actually beginning to abate, she was almost three months pregnant, and nearly at the end of her first trimester. She was getting excited about the baby, and hoped it would be a little boy, who would look exactly like Joe.

“I had the flu,” she reiterated, and he had believed her all along. He had no reason to doubt her, or suspect she might be pregnant. It was the farthest thing from his mind.

“I'm glad you're over it. Do your paper so we can go to a movie next week,” he said, as he hopped on his bicycle, and waved as he rode off, his dark hair ruffled by the wind, and his brown eyes laughing at her. He was a nice boy, and she had grown very fond of him."

"She wondered at times if things would have been different between them if Joe had never existed. It was hard to say. She had deep feelings of affection for Andy but couldn't even imagine feeling for him what she felt for Joe. There was something warm and cuddly and kind about Andy, but he elicited none of the excitement and passion that she felt for Joe. But she knew that one day, Andy would make someone a fine husband. He was responsible and loving and decent, all the things that women looked for in a man. Unlike Joe, who was awkward and vague, and brilliant, and totally obsessed with airplanes, and had no desire to settle down. She had never expected to fall in love with a man like Joe Allbright, let alone have a baby with him, without even being married. Her life had taken several sharp turns recently, in totally unexpected directions. But with his baby growing in her, she had never been more in love with Joe.

She was actually feeling very well that weekend, and not nearly as tired as she had been. She'd finished the work she had to do, and she had three letters from Joe in one day. They tended to arrive in clumps like that sometimes, it had to do with the way the censors sent them, after they cleared them, to make sure that no one gave away sensitive security secrets, or the locations of their missions. Joe's letters to her had never been a problem. He wrote to her about people, and the local countryside, and his feelings for her, all totally safe subjects.

She had been planning to go home that weekend, and at the last minute decided against it. She went to a movie with a group of friends, and saw Andy there with a girl Kate knew from one of her classes. She was a tall blonde from the Midwest, she had a great smile and long legs, and she had recently transferred from Wellesley. She grinned at Andy when the girl turned away to put her cardigan on, and he made a face at her. Kate and the girls she had gone to the movie with all went back to the house on their bicycles afterward. It was the best way to travel around campus and Cambridge. They were almost home, when a boy on a bicycle came whizzing out of nowhere, cut through the group with a holler and a whoop, and hit Kate so hard she went flying off her bike, fell to the pavement, and was knocked momentarily unconscious. By the time the other girls got off their bikes, she was awake again, but a little groggy. And the boy who had hit her was standing next to her looking panicked and disoriented. It was obvious that he was drunk.