Lone eagle

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.

“Are you crazy?” one of the girls shouted at him, as two others helped Kate to her feet. She had hurt her arm, and her hip, she had fallen hard on her bottom, but nothing seemed to be broken. But all she could think about as she limped back to her room was her baby. She didn't say anything to anyone, but she went straight to bed as soon as they got back to the house, and one of her friends brought her a couple of ice packs for her arm and her hip.

“Are you okay?” Diana asked in her long, slow southern accent. “These northern boys sure don't have manners!”

Kate smiled at her, and thanked her for the ice packs, but it wasn't her arm or her hip that was bothering her. She had had cramps for the past several minutes, and didn't know what to do about it. She thought about going to the infirmary but it was too far to walk, and she was afraid that might make things even worse. She thought maybe if she just stayed in bed, it would get better. She had obviously shaken up the baby pretty badly. But hopefully, it would settle down.

“If you need anything, just call me,” Diana said as she left Kate, and went downstairs to smoke a cigarette with a boy from MIT who had dropped by to visit. And when she came back an hour later to check on Kate, she was sleeping. Everyone was sound asleep by the time Kate woke up again at four o'clock in the morning. She was in agony, and when she rolled over in her bed to try and get more comfortable, she saw that she was bleeding. She tried to keep quiet, in spite of the pain, so she wouldn't wake the other girls sleeping near her. And she was doubled over in pain as she made her way to the bathroom. She didn't see it, but she left a trail of blood behind her as she walked. Her arm and her hip hurt too, from the encounter with the bicycle, but nothing was as painful as her belly. She could hardly stand.

She closed the door to the bathroom as quietly as she could, and turned the light on, and when she looked in the mirror she saw that everything from her waist down was covered in blood. She was hemorrhaging, and knew what was happening. She was losing Joe's baby. But she was afraid that if she called someone, she might get kicked out of school, or they might call her parents. She didn't know what the consequences would be if the administration found out she was pregnant. She assumed she'd be asked to leave.