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"So," said Eddie when they reached the corner, "you and Edna thought I ditched you, eh?"

"Edna didn't," said Dot, shortly. "She said you'd come."

"Hm." Eddie spoke into the cup of his hand where he was lighting a cigarette. "She probably thought I wouldn't have the courage to fade out."

Dot laughed. "Gee, Edna can't win in your figuring, can she? What's wrong with Edna?"

"Aw, she makes me sick," said Eddie. "She thinks she's so God damned important."

"Well, she was pretty important last night. What would I have done without her? My brother kicked me out. I wouldn't have known what to do without Edna."

"You wouldn't have known what to do without Edna, eh?"

"No. What could I have done?"

Eddie smiled without being amused at anything at all. "Jesus, Kid, you and I will get along great," he said somewhat irrelevantly.

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née Haley gazed about her home on a late October day. Her housework was all done. Mrs. Harris, slim to the point of emaciation, had arrived a half hour before with a mop and broom and had done Mrs. Collins' housework. Mrs. Harris was Mrs. Collins' landlady. She had made the bed, mopped around the floor, and let the broom rest lightly for a moment in the middle of the rug. Then she had taken herself to other parts, murmuring vaguely about some one called Margaret who needed a real good lesson.

Mrs. Collins, left behind, surveyed her home. It was twelve by ten and had two windows. The bed hogged most of the space, but a few chairs, a table, a wardrobe, and a bureau did manage to squeeze in. There was a picture of a very nice young man necking a white horse, and another picture showed a bevy of cheerful Russians on the verge of sleigh-riding right into the middle of Eddie's new six-tube set.

A very nice home, no doubt. Mrs. Collins was well pleased with it. And her housework was done! The rest of the day belonged entirely to her to do with as she pleased. Strangely enough the thought gave Mrs. Collins a heavy feeling in the region of her heart. What did one do with unoccupied days that stretched along with tedious consistency? Business? No, Eddie had said that no wife of his was going to work while he had his health. Noble of him. Very.

He arose at eight every morning, and Dot went with him to the little dairy lunch room next to the bank. Breakfast. Then Dot walked with Eddie to the shop.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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 Sometimes Mrs. Williams, the boss's wife, would be there, and she and Dot would hold the same conversation on each occasion. The weather was fine for the time of year. Yes, a little chill in the air. Indeed a heavy coat did feel good in the evening. The shops were showing the sweetest hats. Mrs. Williams preferred hats above everything else. Dot suspected that her generalization included Mr. Williams. Mrs. Williams was always on her way to do a little shopping if only Bill would give her that money and let her go. Bill would give her that money and away she would go with a last sweet, condescending smile at Dot and a low word to her husband accompanied by a sour expression.

Dot would leave the shop then, too. She would wait till Mrs. Williams was well out of sight, however. It would be terrible if she were to think that Dot was trying to attach herself.

It was very nice to walk slowly along the uptown thoroughfare admiring a dress here, a hat there; a particularly beautiful shade of stockings in a third place. Interesting to note the expressions carried by the women who allowed themselves no glances into the shops where clothing was not sold on credit. Very nice, indeed. That is, very nice while it lasted. But once Dot came to Bim's West End. Theater and walked back on the other side as far as the Drusilla Dress Shop, she had seen everything. Then perhaps her breakfast had digested enough to allow a chocolate malted. She drank a chocolate malted and then wondered what the devil she'd do with herself.

Of course Edna could be visited at any hour of the morning, afternoon, or night, but to keep visiting Edna might suggest that marriage seemed a little bit empty. Sue Cudahy worked. Maude McLaughlin couldn't be seen before 2 and then only by appointment. There simply wasn't anything to do. Mrs. Harris solved the housework

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 problem; consequently lucky little Mrs. Collins had the whole day to herself.

Eddie had been so frighteningly emphatic on the subject of Dot's returning to work.

"No, God damn it. What the hell do you think I am that I can't support my wife? Go to the movies, visit your friends, do what you please, but you'll not go to work."

Dot didn't know that his loud and angry protest had been born in the brain of a five-year-old, scantily-clothed urchin who had trotted stolidly at his mother's side as she scrubbed floors in office buildings, stopping to rest only when that awful pain was giving her a "turn."

Dot never mentioned work again, but she envied Eddie who returned at night after a full and busy day. He didn't have to wonder what he'd do with himself. He ate his dinner ravenously and was ready to enjoy a movie. To Dot, the movies were becoming a deadly bore. The theaters were places where she had to go to keep from dying of loneliness.

Miss Howell, the school teacher who had a room on the same floor with Dot, asked her why she didn't read. Dot thanked her for the suggestion, but somehow the True Story Magazine didn't give a married woman the same kick it might have given a virgin. So after all Miss Howell's kindly suggestion was worthless. Dot couldn't read.

Twice Sue had stolen a day off and had spent it with Dot. It was on one of these days that Dot suffered a shock.

It seemed that Sue was out of favor with her mother. She chewed her gum with passionate intensity and still managed to say, "I told her I was out all night on a party at a friend who lives in Brooklyn's house, but she insists I was with Pat and she called me a terrible name."

Dot registered sympathy. "Why don't you get her to

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 call up the friend and ask her and prove you're right?"

Sue looked surprised and contemptuous all at once. "There ain't no friend in Brooklyn," she said. "I was with Pat. His sister's away and he's alone in the apartment."

"Sue!" Dot was startled. "You don't mean that you slept in the same place alone with Pat!"

"Why not?"

"But didn't anything happen? Didn't he try to go pretty far with you?"

"Well, you damn little fool," said Sue. "Where have you been? Of course he tried to go pretty far with me and succeeded. He's succeeded every time he's tried since a year ago last March."

The room whirled before Dot's dizzy gaze. So Sue had let Pat go the limit, and no one had known it. Pat hadn't told any one. Maybe Eddie wouldn't have, either. Sue wasn't considered a bad girl. She hadn't a frightened, persecuted expression.

"Didn't you give in to Eddie before you married him?" asked Sue.

"Yes," said Dot, hesitantly. She had almost forgotten that she had. Two weeks of marriage does make one feel so settled and solvent.

"Well, what are you so shocked for?"

"I ain't shocked, only I didn't think you would."

"That's no compliment," said Sue, gravely. "A girl is a damn fool who holds back."

"Why do you think that?"

"Gee, Dot, you know yourself how you get loving. There's damn little a fellow don't know about you before you say yes. You'll let him get so far that it ain't decent anyhow, and then you stop him. And what for? So that you can tell your girl friends how scared you was on your wedding night."

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 "No, that ain't the reason," said Dot. "Look at the chance you take. Suppose he didn't marry you?"

"Then I'd marry somebody else and be spared the shame of having to admit that I fooled around with a fellow for two years and didn't have the guts to go further."

"Gee, I never talked to you, Sue, without hearing something I'd never have thought of."

Sue reached for her lipstick with a nonchalant gesture. "When you start cheating on Eddie," she said, "let me know. I'll be able to give you an argument in both directions."

Dot smiled. "I'm not going to cheat on Eddie," she said.

"Well, maybe not." Sue's brow wrinkled thoughtfully. "I remember reading of a case in the newspaper once where a woman was true to her husband for all their married life, but they lived on a farm and there wasn't any one else around."

"Sue! You're terrible."

"Well, maybe," said Sue, "but you know, Dot, I've watched people. You don't. You listen to them. Do you remember Mrs. Barns up on Cypress Avenue? She was getting a tooth filled for damn near a year. You believed her when she complained every day about having to go to the dentist's. Bunk! Doctor Walters was her sweetie. That's why you'd always find her in his office."

"But she said—" began Dot.

"There you are, 'she said.' Hell's bells, Dot, I'm a virgin. I was just kidding you about me and Pat. Believe that and I'll call the ambulance for you. I gotta run along now."

She ran along, and Dot, left alone in her room, wondered if after all Sue wouldn't be happier if she and Pat were respectably married. Later she decided that Sue

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 would not be happier. Not if she had to spend her days wandering about Harlem looking for something to do.

Once Dot took a 'bus ride downtown, but she didn't like it very much. The mashers couldn't be handled like the ambitious youth of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. Up there a girl could always say, "Run along," or "Who are you talking to?" or something like that. In the days when she had gone to work, she had encountered practically no flirtatious gentlemen because there had not been the aimless, timefree air which had accompanied her on her one sally into the Fifth Avenue shopping district.

A man had spoken to her right outside of Russek's. A particularly gorgeous wrap was on display, and Dot had been picturing herself inside it when the man spoke.

"It is beautiful enough," he remarked, "for a bootlegger's mistress."

Dot turned her most crushing gaze upon him.

Undaunted, he continued, "You're not by any chance a bootlegger's mistress, are you?"

"No," replied Dot, "I'm not." And she moved down the street.

The man followed her. "Don't be angry," he pled, "some of our best people are."

"Are what?"

"Bootlegger's mistresses, of course."

"Run along," said Dot, using a bit of magic which she had brought from Harlem.

It failed. He did not vanish.

"I shall run along presently," he said. "I shall run home and write ten thousand words."

That, Dot considered, was a strange remark. That had to be investigated. "Ten thousand words about what?" she asked.

"Bootleggers' mistresses."

"You're crazy," said Dot.

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 After AAWSAP/AATIP was terminated, its supporters unsuccessfully attempted to convince DHS to support a new version of this effort dubbed KONA BLUE.

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) (August 2020–November 2021)

Background: Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved the establishment of the UAPTF in August 2020. Under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (USD(I&S)), the Department of the Navy was asked to lead the task force. It was established to improve understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAP. The task force's mission was to detect, analyze, and catalog UAP that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.

Results: The UAPTF helped standardize, destigmatize, and increase the volume of UAP reporting. Its work also helped calibrate sensors to improve the quality of data collected. Its methods and processes directly led to the identification of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) high altitude balloons that traversed over the continental United States.

Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (June 2021)

Background: Senate Report 116-233, accompanying the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in consultation with the Secretary of Defense to submit an intelligence assessment of the threat posed by UAP and to report on the progress the UAPTF had made in understanding this threat.

Results: The preliminary assessment concluded that: (1) the limited amount of high-quality reporting on UAP hampers the ability to draw firm conclusions about their nature or intent; (2) in a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics; although those observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis; (3) there are probably multiple types of UAP requiring different explanations based on the range of appearances and behaviors described in the available reporting; (4) UAP may pose airspace safety issues and a challenge to U.S. national security; and (5) consistent consolidation of reports from across the USG, standardized reporting, increased collection and analysis, and a streamlined process for screening all such reports against a broad range of relevant government data will allow for a more sophisticated analysis of UAP.

Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) / Airborne Object Identification and Management Executive Management Committee (AOIMEXEC) (November 2021–June 2022)

Background: The Deputy Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), directed USD(I&S) to establish AOIMSG to succeed the USN's UAPTF.

Results: The organization helped initiate synchronization of efforts across the Department and the broader USG to detect, identify, and attribute objects of interests in "Special Use Airspace," as well as to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and


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 North of Central Park it is permissible to deliver such ultimatums after having done hardly any research work on the subject.

Dot's self-elected companion seemed interested in her diagnosis.

"You're the second person who has told me that," he said. "The first one was a brain specialist. A great uncouth chap with a mustache."

"Say, are you trying to pick me up?" asked Dot.

"Not today," he responded. "I'm just after a little light conversation, but if you'll come around Thursday—"

"Don't flatter yourself," said Dot and walked swiftly southward with the gentleman at her elbow.

He kept to her stride and talked into her ear as they traveled. "If you're not a bootlegger's mistress," he said, "would you mind telling me whose mistress you are?"

Dot stopped short and faced him. There was no anger in her glance now. She put her question as though they had been conversing under the most pleasant circumstances for hours. "What does mistress mean?" she asked.

The man looked back at her without raillery in his eyes. He was tall and gray-eyed, and his amused grin died abashed.

"Why, mistress is the word for a woman who has illicit sex relations with a man," he said. "For instance, Du Barry was King Louis' mistress. Do you see?"

Dot nodded. When she looked around again, her masher was hopping in a cab. Dot resolved never to go window shopping downtown again. These guys were too hard to handle.

Well, all right, stay in Harlem. Walk from Bim's West End. Theater to the Drusilla Dress Shop. Many a girl would give her right arm for a husband like Eddie. Walk, drink chocolate malteds, visit friends, go to the movies,

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 and when these things can be borne no longer, cry for loneliness and boredom.

Edna Driggs, walking unceremoniously into the room occupied by Dot and Eddie, found Dot face downward on the bed crying for her loneliness and boredom.

"What's the matter? Have a fight?" asked Edna.

"No." Dot sat up and sniffled.

"Gee, you cry easy," said Edna. "What is it, a gift? Who's dead?"

"No one," Dot answered as miserably as though she were sorry to say that such was the case. "I'm glad to see you, Edna."

A sob.

"I'm glad you told me," said Edna. "I'd never have guessed it."

Dot smiled crookedly. She walked to the bureau and powdered her nose with unnecessary carefulness. Edna watched attentively as the lipstick moved across Dot's lips with deft little strokes. Edna watched more attentively but said nothing when Dot lighted a cigarette and began to puff heroically.

"I'm trying to get so that I like to smoke," Dot explained. "They say it's company when you're alone a lot."

Tears rushed readily to Dot's eyes.

"My, my," said Edna, "don't we just feel awfully sorry for ourself?"

"Well, it's no fun," Dot said hotly. "I'm all alone all day without a thing to do, I almost go crazy."

"I'm alone too," said Edna, "and nobody comes home to me at six o'clock."

Dot wasn't to be shamed out of her misery. "You got Floyd to fuss over, and you got your apartment."

"How would you like to have an apartment?"

"I'd love it, but Eddie's got queer ideas. He'd rather save five dollars a week for two years and pay cash for furniture than get it on time."

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 "That would be Eddie," said Edna. "But listen, I came to tell you about this today, though I didn't intend to spring it before I was half inside the door. I got a lot of furniture, you know. When Marty was alive his younger brother and his mother lived with us; so we had more rooms. It's down the cellar in my house, and it wouldn't cost you a cent. There's beds and chairs and bureaus and tables and everything. I can even fix you on sheets and other household stuff."

Dot's eyes shone. A home of her own. A real home to settle and to re-settle, to clean and mind and in which to put up cretonne curtains.

"Oh, Edna, you darling!"

Dot made an impetuous rush, but Edna held her off with a cautioning hand. "Hold on, Kid, don't holler yet. Remember you got Eddie to convince."

"Oh, he'll do it. He must do it when I tell him how unhappy I've been."

Edna considered Dot's chances. "Well, he might," she said, "but don't die if he says no."

"Three rooms would be plenty," said Dot. "A bedroom, living-room, and kitchen. I couldn't go over fifty a month though. Where would you look if you were me? I don't want to get anywheres near Jim and my father."

Edna said not a word. She knew it wasn't important to Dot whether or not she was answered. She saw that Dot was already laying the linoleum in the most perfectly white kitchen that had ever existed outside of a Saturday Evening Post advertisement. But she was wrong. Dot was only down to the shelving—it would be white and shiny with pictures of little blue coffee grinders on it. Edna was far more troubled than Dot about Eddie's reaction to the idea. He would say no unless his humor was better than Edna had ever seen it.

"How much are electric bills a month?" Dot asked.

"About two dollars too much," said Edna.

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 "No kidding, I want to know." Dot's tone suggested that she was working on a problem of which Edna could have no possible inkling.

"About two dollars," said Edna.

"And gas?"

"Oh, anywhere from a dollar up."

"Gee, that's cheap enough," said Dot. "I could do my own wash—"

"Hold the fire, Kid. Did you ever wring out a blanket?"

"No. Did you?"

"Yep."

"Then so could I, and look at the money I'd save if I did my own laundry."

"And look at how you'd get to hate housework."

Dot smiled loftily. Poor Edna, she didn't know that no one would ever tire of working in the prettiest, coziest little apartment that ever was.

Edna sat for another ten minutes, then made signs of moving on. "I want to buy a hat," she said. "If you're not too tired from hanging the pictures and unpacking the barrels, maybe you'd like to come along."

Dot closed the door on her little be-cretonned love nest and vigorously tried it; then she got her hat and coat and walked out of the furnished room.

"I bet I'd learn to cook right away," she said as she followed Edna to the street.

"Sure you would," Edna agreed. "All any bride needs is a can opener."

"Oh, I mean really cook, pot roasts and things."

There was something very touching in the way she said pot roasts and things. Edna patted her tenderly on the shoulder as they walked down Madison Avenue.

"Ask Eddie," she said, "and if he says you can take the furniture I'll show you how to cook pot roasts and soups and puddings and everything."

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 "Gee, Edna, do you think we could get a place for fifty dollars?"

"Any amount of them," Edna assured her. "Nice ones, too."

Edna was troubled. She wished with all her heart that she had approached Eddie on the subject. The thought of Dot's disappointment if Eddie displayed his middle-class independence made Edna choose a green hat when she had come out with the sole idea of getting a tan one.

Dot found shop windows that she had never before noticed. Windows with chinaware and ice boxes, windows with garbage pails and mops.

Edna watched her pityingly. Some might think that envy would have been a more appropriate expression for a woman whose young enthusiasms were buried with a rollicking, mad Scotsman. Edna was acutely aware that if Dot had been able to think of anything but house furnishings, she, the poor old widow, would have received a bounteous share of pity. Edna chuckled silently. Nothing could hurt her. A man with a sulky face, sulkily telling her that he would have none of her friend's furniture in his sulky home, would have left her howling with mirth. Poor Dot. Eddie could hurt her dreadfully. Nothing could hurt Edna. Not even Jim Haley—oh, well, nothing could hurt her much.

"Look, Edna, you stick close to me when I approach Eddie on the subject."

"Yeh, sure, I'll be only a short car ride away."

"No, I mean it."

"So do I mean it. If I'm there how can Eddie call me an interfering, God damn pest?"

"Edna!"

"Yes, Edna! You tell him, Kid, all by yourself. If he isn't eager to take the stuff, my being there isn't going to throw him into an ecstasy of delight."

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 So Dot told him about it without Edna to back her up. It was after dinner in the Perfect Snack Lunch Room and Restaurant. Eddie was smoking thoughtfully. He was wondering why the hell the boss had put eight volts of grid bias in that neutrodyne. Grid bias was the works, all right, but why the hell eight—

"Eddie, wouldn't you just love a home of your own with home-cooked meals and all?"

Eddie's expression was one of supreme indifference. "Less trouble in a restaurant," he answered discouragingly.

"Yes, but you don't get the proper stuff in a place like this."

He forgot grid bias and brought his eyes to rest on Dot's face. "Sorry I can't afford the Astor," he said.

"Oh, I didn't mean that, Eddie. I mean you don't order right. You don't balance your diet. You don't eat spinach, for instance. Now in a home of your own you'd get spinach, for instance. Nice, well-cooked spinach with a hard-boiled egg on it."

"I hate spinach, for instance," said Eddie, hardly.

"Oh, well, not just spinach. In a home of your own—"

Eddie stuck the light of his cigarette in the coffee. There was no hint of indulgence in his invitation. He sounded like Eddie in still, white anger confronting an enemy. "Got something on your mind? Out with it."

Dot was frightened. Oh, he was going to be mad! If it was only Sue who had offered them furniture, or even Maude McLaughlin; but Edna— The first fight was coming. Maybe the last fight. Perhaps Eddie would leave her when he found that she was not satisfied with the home that he had been able to give her. She wanted to say, "No, honest, Eddie, I was only thinking," but she wanted those three little fifty-dollar rooms so badly, and maybe he Would say yes. He was waiting for her to speak. He was

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 ready to oppose anything she suggested. She read that on his face. Oh, well, she couldn't sit there looking at him.

"Edna has some furniture that she has no use for. She thought it would be cheaper and more comfortable for us if we took it and got an apartment somewhere. I'd like to do it."

Eddie tipped his chair back a little from the table and surveyed Dot with a stern eye.

"She's sorry for you, eh? Too bad. We can't take charity, Dot. We'll have a home when I can afford it, see? Marriages that go right have one mess of brains running them, not three nor even two. I'll tell you when we're ready for an apartment. Did you get that?"

Eddie's severe glance showed nothing of what he was thinking. The cutting blue of his eyes did not carry to Dot the thoughts that were running in his mind.

First fight now. This'll be good. I can still hear the old lady yelling, "You make me sick." Husband and wife fights. Dot'll say she's sorry she married me and that I begrudge her a little happiness and that I'm a God damn fool.

"So I'll tell Edna no?" Her voice was very low and small.

"Use your own judgment. I said we couldn't take the stuff, didn't I?"

Dot arose from the table. Her nose was a little pink, and her eyes were not accessible.

"You know best, Eddie," she said, tremulously.

Jesus Christ! Nothing but "You know best, Eddie." Just like that.

His hand reached out for hers. He didn't see the diners, only Dot with her little pink nose and her loyal eyelids protecting her tears from staring strangers.

"Are you mad, Dot?"

"No, only I'm—so—disappointed."

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 She broke away from him and bolted for the door.

He followed and caught her by the arm. Jesus! She wasn't mad.

"Dottie, I was thinking of something else, and you made me sore. Go ahead, get the furniture if you want it. I—I'm crazy. Trying to show who's boss—"

"Oh, Eddie—"

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subway stations from Harlem and up four flights of stairs, Dot found her ideal apartment. Not right away, of course. First there had been a week of terrible discouragement and unbelievable weariness. But that was forgotten now. She and Eddie were firmly ensconced in their home.

Dot had liked the house at first sight. She had admired the big orange lights which hung outside and the way the building was divided into two parts. There was space for fifty families in the building, twenty-five on each side. The janitress was a terrible woman and easily nettled, but one couldn't have everything—and the apartment was so adorable.

There were five apartments on each floor. The Collinses had the middle one, and it lay behind a lovely reddishbrown door. Of course it was on the top floor, but then neither Dot nor Eddie minded the stairs. Dyckman Street was just around the corner and Two Hundred and Seventh Street a few blocks away.

What Dot liked best about the apartment was that it had no hall. She hated apartments with halls. Nobody would be mean enough to count the place which could be crossed with one large step a hall.

And the living-room was right there, in front of the one large step. Dot thought it a very large living-room, considering that her apartment was only three rooms. The room was thirteen feet by eleven and had one nice, large window which looked on the street. It annoyed her a little that she couldn't see much of the street because the gray wings of the house jutted out on either side, but she con-

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 soled herself with the thought that she could see who was passing her door.

Dot had "done" her living-room in delft blue. There were blue voile curtains at the window. Delft-blue voile. Dot had made them herself, and she was well pleased with the window.

It irritated her that the rug wasn't delft blue, but still it was awfully nice in its reddish-greenish-tannish way. Dot had never before seen such plump roses, and they were tan roses, too, but the rug had been Edna's, thus erasing all doubt of their authenticity.

Dot was doubtful about the golden-oak table. Ought it be square? Oh, well, it was square, and she didn't know anything that could be done about it except to keep an ecru cover on it and in the center a little fern that almost looked real.

One of the chairs was golden oak, too, and it beamed with a sickly yellowish smile upon its partner who was only mission wood.

There was a Morris chair. The cushions on it wrere not delft blue. They were bottle green and a little worn, but Dot didn't mind that. She thought Eddie wouldn't be nearly so comfortable in a stiff new chair.

Catty-cornered in the southwest corner was a table. Edna's mother-in-law had got it from her mother-in-law as a wedding present. Dot liked it least of all the things in the room. It was so terribly heavy and old-fashioned. She had Eddie's radio set on it, so people wouldn't notice that the table was a hundred and fifty years old.

Of course there was a sofa. It was cherry-wood and not upholstered in delft blue. It had a pale gray background and was brocaded with tiny pink buttercups. It was a very comfortable sofa. The first day in the new apartment, Dot had made Eddie lie on it and had asked if he could honestly say that he had ever encountered a

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 more comfortable one. There was a bridge lamp beside the sofa. It had a black iron base and a charming shade upon which was the silhouette of a geisha being obligingly carted about town in the silhouette of a jinrickshaw.

Against the opposite wall was a chest of drawers where Dot kept the dining-room and kitchen linen. It was chestnut and had knobs which, as though they themselves were not adequate for their jobs, provided little metal pulls on their neat rounded ends.

The wall paper was unfortunately not delft blue. The landlord had of course given Dot her choice of several samples, but inasmuch as there was not a delft blue in the collection, she had chosen sand color.

Edna said that sand color was a good background for pictures; so Dot had to have pictures. She dumped a photograph of her brother Jim out of a gilt oval frame and replaced it with a shiny green likeness of Pola Negri cut from a movie magazine. Then there was the picture that Edna had had taken of herself and Floyd while Floyd was still young enough to be manageable. Whistler's "Magnolia Tree" was Sue Cudahy's contribution to the living-room. A plaster-of-paris plaque of a Gibson girl in linen duster, veil, and goggles gave a hint of the esthetic pursuits of Edna's youth.

Dot's heart had been set on candlesticks. There's something dressy about mahogany-stained candlesticks with tall, imposing candles. On the day that she made these purchases, the Woolworth had been out of delft blue candles; so she had taken pale green ones.

The pictures and the candles were indeed big factors in the success of the living-room, but Dot felt that not enough credit was given the chandelier. It belonged to the house, of course, and Dot tried not to think that she might some day move away from it. It was a white bowl supported by a thick brass chain and nicely finished off

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 with a row of white glass lace. It hung a little low, Dot thought; two links shorter, and Eddie might have saved himself that nasty crack on the forehead.

All in all, the living-room was very satisfactory, in fact, quite lovely. Thinking it over from an unprejudiced angle, Dot decided that she hadn't made a mistake in "doing" it in delft blue.

The kitchen was of course much smaller than the living-room. Dot liked a small kitchen. It saves a great many steps, and this one had the advantage of opening right out from the living-room. There was a swinging door between. Dot hoped Eddie hadn't seen her swinging the door back and forth and back and forth again for the sole purpose of watching it work.

There was a big white sink, and Eddie had bought a fixture which, when attached to the faucets, made it possible to warm the cold water or cool the hot water. It was just an ordinary black gas stove the Collinses had, but it roasted beautifully. The ice box had been relined when they moved in. It would have cost ten dollars to cover the floor with linoleum; so Dot had decided on oil cloth. They had saved four and a half dollars that way, and Eddie had varnished the entire surface, which was bound to make it last even longer than linoleum. It was a pretty pattern, blue and white squares. The kitchen window looked out on the rear. It had a little white curtain with a checkered gingham edge. There was a shelf above the tub, and four dazzling white canisters sat thereon. The largest was labeled "Flour" and the smallest "Tea." The two between were the sugar canister, which could accommodate four pounds without discomfort, and the coffee canister, which could accommodate two pounds with terrible discomfort. There was the salt box there, too, the pepper box, and many other boxes, jars, and cans.

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 Behind the cupboard doors Dot kept her set of dishes, of course. There was a bowl of fruit on the little white table that stood so self-consciously between its two white chairs. It knew it shouldn't be there with its chairs telling the wicked secret that Dot and Eddie frequently took their meals in the kitchen. Dot often gave the table an admiring glance so that it shouldn't feel too bad. The bread box on the built-in sideboard matched the canisters. Oh, triumph of domestic art! It was white, and upon it in blue letters ran the legend "Bread and Cake." Woe be unto the infidel who tried to push past the smart sliding door an unwanted pie.

Beneath the bread box were two drawers. In one lay the good cutlery in pomp and splendor upon a yard of green velveteen. In the other were the kitchen knives and forks, the coffee-strainer, egg-beater, pancake-turner, potato knife, wooden spoon, and mixed in with these little industrious utensils, bewildered and dazed, were a mess of grid leaks, discarded dials, odds and ends of wire, a burnt-out "C" battery, an insulator, and a tube that had once been a darn good detector. Underneath, in the closet where the shining aluminum pots, pans, percolator, and electric iron made their home, Eddie had hidden all the parts of dismantled radio sets that were too big to fit in the drawer.

To feast her eyes on her bedroom Dot had to return through the living-room. She had to walk out into that little place that could hardly be called a hall and then walk right past the door that led to the outside and turn quickly around a little angle, and there she was in the bedroom. It had two windows. These looked right smack across twenty-five feet into somebody else's bedroom, but Dot didn't look, except straight down with her head to the left side, and then she could see the street again just as she did from the living-room.

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 national security. AOIMSG had not achieved initial operating capability before subsequent legislation in the FY2022 NDAA resulted in it being renamed to AARO and given an expanded mission set.

UAP Independent Study Team (UAPIST) (June 2022–September 2023)

Background: NASA established the UAPIST as a subordinate group of its Earth Science Advisory Committee, which was established in accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The UAPIST examined UAP from a scientific perspective, focusing on how NASA can use data and the scientific tools to achieve a better understanding of UAP. The Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator for Research at NASA's Science Mission Directorate was responsible for orchestrating the study. The independent study team was chaired by the President of the Simons Foundation and included members from the USG, academia, and the private sector.

Results: NASA released its report in September 2023. The report focused on discovering the best data streams available and discoverable to resolve UAP cases. It did not focus on whether or not UAP were of extraterrestrial origin. NASA also established a UAP Research Director position.

All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) (Established July 15, 2022)

Background: In response to the NDAA for FY22, the Deputy Secretary of Defense in coordination with the DNI, conveyed direction to the USD(I&S) by renaming the AOIMSG as AARO, and expanded its scope and mission. AARO organized itself around four functions (analysis, operations, science & technology (S&T), and strategic communications). AARO is developing IC and S&T analytic tradecraft practices, implementing a science testing plan, implementing a secure interviewee debriefing program, and is working to standardize UAP collection and reporting across the DoD and the IC.

Results: Consistent with congressional direction, AARO provides quarterly reports, semiannual briefings, and an annual report to Congress in coordination with the ODNI. In addition, on January 12, 2023, the ODNI submitted the 2022 Annual Report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena to Congress. This report was drafted in partnership with AARO and based on AARO's data.

The report stated that there was a total of 510 UAP reports as of August 30, 2022. This included the 144 UAP reports covered during the 17 years of reporting included in the ODNI's preliminary assessment, as well as 247 new reports and 119 reports that subsequently were discovered or reported.

The report also stated that UAP events continue to occur in restricted or sensitive airspace, highlighting possible concerns for safety of flight or adversary collection activity.


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 There were pink voile curtains at these windows, but Dot hadn't made them. Bedroom curtains are nicer when they're all frilly and ruffly. It was the ruffliness that had scared Dot out of making them. She had bought them from the department store at Two Hundred and Seventh and Broadway. Two and a quarter a pair.

Coming at one from the center of the north wall was the bed. A full-size, bird's-eye maple bed with carved scroll-work in two places. It had three pillows; Dot liked two and Eddie liked one. The spread was just plain white. To Dot there was something touching about that white spread. It seemed so wistfully envious of the beautiful pink curtains, so sure that no one could ever admire it while the breezes insisted upon making lovely, delicate sails out of the pink voile curtains. Dot always patted the spread lovingly.

The rug was leaf green with, Dot thought, pineapples in it. She decided to refer to them as "figures." If she called them pineapples Edna might think she didn't like them. When Dot sat down on a maple-wood chair she was able to see under the bed where there was a worn spot in the rug, but—comforting thought—few people sat on the maple-wood chair. Another chair was upholstered in yellow brocade and absolutely smirked with self-satisfaction.

Dot admired Eddie's chiffonier terribly. It was chestnut, because chestnut was the only wood that Martin Driggs knew by name and he had been badgered into choosing his own chiffonier. A matting-covered chest stood in one corner of the room. It held some of the bedroom linens and towels. The overflow was accommodated in Eddie's chiffonier. Eddie, statistics proved, could do nicely with two drawers and a laundry bag.

Dot frequently opened the door of her closet. It had a large wooden arm, stretched between its walls, which

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 held her dresses in neat array. Her hats and shoes stood on the shelf above. There was no sign of Eddie there except a pair of discarded shoes which he hadn't yet accustomed himself to the idea of throwing out. A cretonne-covered box on the floor was where Dot kept her more intimate garments. She had no bureau, chiffonier, or chest of drawers. Instead she had what Mrs. Williams had suggested Eddie should give her in honor of their first home, a vanity table, a frail, mahogany-stained, trimirrored vanity table with two shallow little drawers and knots of forget-me-nots painted helter-skelter with fine disregard of balance. It was Dot's pride and joy.

Sometimes when her work was all done, she'd go whisking about the apartment, patting the white spread, smiling at the kitchen table, and admiring her blue voile curtains. Even the bathroom with its sparkling white tub and perfectly workmanlike shower bath came in for its share of praise.

Dot would stand on the little blue bath mat and study the gleaming white tiles surrounding it. And sometimes she would suddenly burst into song, and other times she felt as though she'd just like to cry.

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was kind of hard to tell Eddie because it was all such a new idea. They had never discussed the possibility, or rather the certainty, of Dot's becoming pregnant. He didn't know that it had finally happened, and she hated to tell him. He got mad so easy.

His ignorance of the result of their young and irresponsible carelessness was not due to the fact that they lived like a moving-picture couple, who one would imagine consummated their amours through an ambassador, but rather because Eddie was only vaguely conscious that the dates on the calendar had anything to do with Dot's physical condition.

She wondered if she couldn't get Edna to tell him. No, Sue Cudahy would be a more acceptable message-bearer, or even Maude McLaughlin. Dot knew that she was only playing with the thought to relieve her feelings. She knew she would have to tell him herself.

Gee, this was worse than asking him if they might take Edna's furniture. Babies were cunning things, sort of gay and friendly. They didn't cost much either, and it would sleep in a crib beside their bed. There's something sort of valuable about them. She couldn't afford a nurse; so she'd have to stay home and mind it. No leaving them alone. Some people did, of course, but occasionally a baby pulled the blanket up and smothered, or the house caught fire. No, she'd have to cut out parties and stay home and probably sit close to the crib and watch the baby while it slept. Tied down. No dances, no movies, no window-shopping of an evening. Tied down. But the baby would be in his

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 crib, and it would be an ivory-colored crib with perhaps a picture of a pussy-cat at the head and foot.

"Eddie." One had to tell Eddie, and it seemed proper that one should be careless and hard in the telling. "I think I'm pregnant."

Eddie looked at her without speaking. He was leaning against the built-in sideboard in the kitchen while Dot fried the chops for supper.

"It's the twenty-eighth now," she went on. "Yep, I guess I'm pregnant."

"You don't seem much worried," he said.

"Of course, I'm not worried," she began gayly and stopped short. There was something in his face that stopped her. She ought to be worried. He was worried. The familiar eyes had narrowed in their equally familiar way.

Worried! God, a baby! They were all right, of course. Some fellows were simply coo-coo about their kids, and the little devils got so after a while that they would say Daddy. But Dot standing there at the stove, young, smiling—pretty green, Dot. What did she know about pain? And it was pain. Eddie could imagine pain. He could see it coming unexpectedly upon Dot, catching her in the dead of night, catching her while she smiled in her sleep. Even his arm about her wouldn't help, and how could she know what it would be like? Young, smiling, frying chops, and telling him that she was pregnant, in the tone she used to the iceman when she ordered a twenty-cent piece of ice. But maybe—Even Dot was a woman. Maybe she wanted a baby. Cute damn things. Once a baby in a bakery had got so that she knew Eddie and had quite unexpectedly made him a present of her rattle. It had been a pink rabbit with little pebbles inside. Of course, he'd given it back to her; but it was the idea of the thing.

"Do you want a baby?" he asked.

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 There was his face. Narrow eyes, set jaw. There was his voice. Cold, steely. There was his question. Do you want a baby? He threw his cigarette on the lovely oilcloth and crushed it to nothingness. Eddie had never abused their home before. Do you want a baby? He was looking at her now. What did he want her to say? No, of course. Would he look so worried, so hard, if he wanted the other answer?

Dot turned a chop over, disclosing a hitherto unsuspected lovely brown side. She threw the pancake-turner on the tub. It made a nasty clatter from which even the tub seemed to shrink.

"What do I want a baby for?" she asked. "Who wants to be tied down for months before and years after? Not me."

Eddie sighed. That was a sigh of relief, of course, but his expression never relaxed all evening.

On the thirtieth Dot looked at Eddie qhestioningly. "It's the thirtieth," she said. "Where do we go from here?"

"You're sure now, eh?"

"Positive."

"Well," said Eddie. It was different when it was a fellow's wife. A fellow didn't go in a pool room and get hold of a guy he knew, tell his story, and see if the guy could suggest a drug or a doctor. It was different when it was a fellow's wife. "Well," said Eddie. "Well—"

Dot went to see Sue Cudahy. Sue had quit work. She was going to marry Pat in another month, and she was letting him get accustomed to supporting her.

Dot found her sitting on the sofa in the Cudahy parlor, re-stringing her yellow beads. She looked a little bored with life and had none of the shining mysticism of a girl in her last month of single blessedness. She chuckled when Dot told her news.

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 "Good for you," she cried.

"Good!" Dot looked grieved at her friend's perversity. "It's hell."

"Why, what's the matter? You're married, ain't you?"

"Sure, but Eddie— I don't want a kid. Say, Sue, what do you do to get out of a mess like this?"

Sue, in turn, looked a trifle grieved. It was cruel and tactless of Dot to come to a girl on the brink of marriage and ask such a question.

"I really don't know anything about it," said Sue, a bit coldly.

Dot didn't "get" Sue's position at all.

"Gee, there must be something," she said. "Look, Sue, Pat's in a drug store. He can get me something, can't he?"

"Why, that's against the law, Dot. Pat would lose his job." Sue looked properly shocked at her friend's request.

"Well," said Dot, "all right. I'm sorry I asked."

Silence for a moment; then Dot spoke of the gorgeous winter coats in Koch's window.

It was just before she left to go home and fix Eddie's supper that Sue relented.

"Pat did get something once for the wife of a friend of his," she said. "I'll call him up, and you can send Eddie over to the store tonight and he'll let him have it."

Dot was grateful and said so. She went home feeling lighter of heart than she had felt for days. Everything was going to be right again.

Only Pat's wonderful remedy didn't help. Religiously Dot took it and each night when Eddie came home she sadly admitted that success had not crowned her efforts.

"All that rotten-tasting stuff," she thought, "just to keep a little crib out of the bedroom."

"She's afraid of being tied down," thought Eddie.

After a week, Dot stopped taking the stuff. She would almost have let things drift. She was tired of medicine

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 and of baths so hot that they burned her skin. She was almost ready to say, "Well, what's to be will be."

Only Eddie said, "What are you going to do now?"

She thought of Maude McLaughlin the next day. Maude had always been wise. She would know something. Time was growing very important now. In fear of being put off, Dot went without preparing Maude for her visit. What are you going to do now? Eddie had asked. Even hours seemed precious. What are you going to do now?

Maude was at home, a Maude in kimono and mules, a Maude with tousled hair.

"I didn't think I'd find you home," said Dot. "But I took a chance."

She followed Maude down the hall into the dining-room. From abovestairs a voice floated down.

"Who is it, Maudie?"

"For me," said Maude, curtly.

That had been Mrs. McLaughlin, Dot knew. She wished that she could speak to her. She would probably be able to help.

"I'm spending the day in," said Maude. "We have visitors. A niece of mine is visiting us. You didn't know my sister, did you?"

"Didn't know you had one."

That seemed to vex Maude. "Of course I have a sister," she said. "She is married and lives upstate. She's sick and has sent her kid down here for us to mind. I was playing with her when you came in."

"Funny to think of you playing with a kid."

"Oh, I'm good at it," said Maude.

A tall negress in a stiff white dress came to close the door that divided the dining-room from a room beyond. Dot caught a flash of a blond-haired tot of two or thereabouts. The door closed, and the child's voice, raised in instant disapproval, rent the air. Between her violent

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 shrieks, Dot could hear her saying, "Mommie, Mommie. I want my Mommie."

"She's homesick," explained Maude.

"Poor kid," Dot commented.

The negress opened the door. "Sorry, Miss McLaughlin," she said; "she'll be quiet if you let her stay in here."

The child scampered past her nurse and climbed up on Maude's lap. She brushed a little smooth cheek against Maude's face and curled up contentedly. "Mommie," she whispered.

Dot took a deep breath and said, "You know, I'm pregnant."

She half expected Maude to burst out in hearty congratulations, and Maude's horror-stricken expression comforted her.

"Oh, Lord, Dot," she said. "For God's sake, don't have a baby. Oh, the agony of it."

"I wouldn't mind that," said Dot, "if only—"

"You wouldn't mind it, eh?" Maude's eyes rested on the curly blond head against her breast. "Fancy that passing through you," she said.

Dot gasped. She'd never thought of childbirth except vaguely. Both Dot and Maude lost sight of the fact that it was not an infant's head they were regarding.

"I've taken some medicine," said Dot, "but it's no good."

"None of it's any good," said Maude. "There's no medicine in the world that will do the trick. You have to have an operation."

"Well, gee, don't that hurt terribly?"

"It does," said Maude, "the first time, because most girls are crazy enough to try it without ether. If you have ether you don't feel a damn thing, where in actually having the baby, they can't very well give you ether until the worst of it's nearly over."

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 Dot was overawed at the easy, almost doctorlike way that Maude gave out her information. She sat with her legs crossed carelessly, the child in her arms, a cigarette in her mouth. Once she removed the cigarette for the express purpose of kissing the baby. Dot was enchanted with Maude's worldliness.

"Gee, you know a lot," she murmured, devoutly. "Did the doctor tell you or did you read it in a book?"

Maude laughed a little. "Dot, you're wonderful," she said. "I don't know whether to kiss you or to kill you. You might go to hell, Kid, but it won't be from lack of faith."

"What do you mean, Maude?"

Maude sighed. "You must be kidding me," she said. "Nobody could be so thick, but anyhow I'll write you an address where you can go and get fixed up. Don't let them charge you over fifty dollars."

Dot gasped. "Fifty dollars!"

Maude looked at her in surprise.

"Holy God, Kid," she said, "you didn't expect to beat that price, did you? I know a girl who pays three hundred for every one she has."

"Three hundred!"

Maude shrugged. "It's a bootleg operation, Kid. If it was legal it wouldn't be worth more than ten dollars, but the country says 'No abortions'; so dumb doctors who couldn't cure a split lip get rich on doing them."

Maude's words didn't reach Dot's consciousness. She was thinking of the price. Fifty dollars! Could Eddie raise fifty dollars?

Maude followed her train of thought.

"You can have a baby for nothing," she said. "The hospitals are wide open to the woman who wants to have a baby, but to the woman who doesn't want one—that's a different thing. High prices, fresh doctors. It's a man's

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 world, Dot. To the woman who knows her place they will give their charity, but the woman who wants to keep her body from pain and her mind from worry is an object of contempt. Hm, Dot, did you get that? I'm getting pretty smart. Guess I'll get a soap box and talk birth control to the down-trodden masses."

Dot said nothing for a moment. Then she asked, "Maude, do you suppose it is really terrible pain for a woman to have a child?"

"Dot, it's unbelievable agony. If you ever have one, remember while you're in the delivery room that I told you not to do it. Dig up fifty dollars for an operation even if you have to sell your furniture."

"But, look, Maude, there's an awful lot that must be nice about a baby. People have 'em all the time and they seem happy about it."

Maude thoughtfully extinguished her cigarette. "Honey," she said, "you're an awful nice kid, but you're a moron. No offense meant. It's just a condition over which you have no control. A lot of people are morons, and ideals are meant for them. There'd be no law and order if everybody thought like I do, and I ought not tell you this, but I'm going to anyhow. Ted told me, and it's pretty near true. Did you ever notice that when there's something unpleasant to do it's always covered up with a lot of glamour commonly known as bologna? It's good for the world that the women should have babies; so they keep the fiction moving about dear little baby hands, beautiful motherhood, a woman's true mark of distinction, and so forth. It's good for the world that our men should go and be butchered and starved and diseased in their God damn armies; so we hear about glory and bravery and patriotism and that bunk. Any time you hear a lot of piping about any grand honor you're getting, take a look under it and you'll see it's the bunk."

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 "Gee, Maude, you take the joy out of life."

"Ain't no joy in it, Kid. It's eating, drinking, working, Moving, suffering, and dying. Go see that doctor, Kid, and cheat the world of a baby that would damn near kill you in getting here."

Dot nodded amiably. At last Maude had said something intelligible. She wanted Dot to go to the doctor's. Well, of course, Dot would go; but the rest of her friend's tirade sounded pretty dizzy. It was unpleasant stuff, Dot could gather that much. All about not letting her child grow up and join the army. Well, if he wanted to join, Dot couldn't see how she was going to stop him; but she wouldn't argue that point with Maude right now.

She felt that she ought to go. A sudden detachment had claimed Maude. She gazed at her watch and gazed in the direction of the door behind which the negress lurked. The child had grown restless and fretful.

"Well, thanks a lot, Maude. I think I'll run along now."

Maude nodded as though that was also her feeling on the subject. Dot wormed her way into her coat and said good-by.

"I'll let you know how I make out," she said.

Maude did not follow her to the door. It seemed there was a law about moving the child from her lap. As Dot passed through the hall she encountered the negress, who was bearing a tray in the direction of her charge. There was a big bowl of carrots and potatoes, a glass of milk, a slice of bread and butter, a pat of Jello molded into an enticing little form, and three Nabiscos.

Just before she closed the door, Dot heard Maude's voice raised in a dulcet eulogy.

"Oh, Mommie's lamb, see the lovely carrots and the nice 'taters and afterwards if you eat everything there's Jello and crackers—"

Dot closed the door. She felt a little cold and wistful.

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 Jello in a heart-shaped mold. Carrots could be shaped that way, too. There were cribs with pussy-cats on them made in apartment-house sizes that would just fit into that corner beside the bed. She had recently seen a high chair with the back shaped like a rabbit's head. Did you put bootees on little tiny babies or those infinitesimal glove-soft shoes that one saw in windows? Oh, well, hell! Might as well go see this doctor and get it over with. Who wants a baby to tie you down when he's small and go join the army when he gets big?

Dot consulted the address which Maude had given her. It was Dr. Griegman, and he lived two blocks from the Theresa Hotel. She knew that nothing important could happen that day, for she had not the fifty dollars, and Maude had told her that for illegal operations the doctor collected before he put the patient on the table. Still, it would be just as well to see him and find out if he would do it at all.

The doctor's house was a front similar to the one in which she and Eddie had lived. It was perhaps Dot's fevered thoughts that cloaked it in a sinister haze. There seemed something dread and ominous in the many drawn shades, something weird and murderous about the cat who innocently took the sun upon the front steps.

Dot rang the bell. A middle-aged woman whose forte was not English opened the door. She ushered Dot into a huge reception room, and Dot sat down. There were several chairs, a divan, a long, low table. The room was empty save for herself. There was something offensive in the barrenness of the doctor's table. One could fancy the doctor saying, "What! Magazines for the dames who come in here? They don't need them. Their minds are well occupied."

The rug needed sweeping, Dot noted after a time. Another few minutes passed before she observed the

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 huddled wisps of dust clinging together beneath the divan. Then she saw other things. Dirty windows, a smeared mirror. She shuddered. There was a damp chilliness about the room.

Suddenly the rolling doors sixteen feet in front of her parted, and the doctor gestured for her to enter. As she crossed the threshold and the doors snapped behind her, she had a comforting thought that after all Maude knew where she was going. Maude could put che police on the right track if Eddie became alarmed at the prolonged absence of his wife.

The room on the other side of the door was not the hideous room with the "table" as Dot had expected. There was a door, however, in the west wall, which was certainly concealing the chamber of horrors. Dot tried not to look at it, but there was nothing much more attractive in the room they were in. A very old desk with papers in a crazy swirl across it stood beneath a double window. The telephone was on it, and a paper weight in the actual size of a human skull made Dot wonder gloomily if it represented a former patient. A couch with the stuffing bursting forth ran along one wall. There were two chairs, a table, a bookcase, and a great deal of dust. The doctor's diploma hung on the wall, but it was too far above her head for Dot to read, had she so desired.

The doctor sat on the desk, and Dot timidly settled herself on a chair that promptly tilted back six sudden inches and made her gasp.

The doctor laughed but sobered quickly at the blank, frightened query on Dot's face. "That's the desk chair," he said. "Sit there." He gestured to another chair which Dot accepted gingerly.

"Now, what seems to be the trouble?" he asked.

Dot didn't feel much like telling him. He seemed so very young. She wanted an old doctor with a full white

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 beard which, though unsanitary, would certainly be reassuring. Dr. Griegman was thirty or thereabouts, and everybody knows that a doctor of thirty suggests to the feminine mind rompers or an affair, depending on her type. To Dot he suggested rompers. A doctor of thirty was to her like a plumber of ten.

But she told him that she thought she was pregnant. Dr. Griegman looked properly interested, as though he ever had patients in a different condition.

"What makes you think that?"

Dot explained.

"Hm," said Dr. Griegman. His dark, not bad-looking face seemed worried. "Are you married?" he asked.

Dot blushed hotly.

"Of course I am," she said.

"Of course you are," Griegman mocked. "I've never had a patient yet who wasn't."

He jumped from the desk. "All right," he said, "let's look you over."

He motioned to the west door. "Go on in. Take off your dress and brassiere or whatever you wear and climb up on the table. Let me know when you're ready."

Dot went slowly into the other room, closing the door behind her. There was the operating table standing white and quiet as a casket, only not quite so white. Griegman's last patient had evidently had her shoes shined before the examination. There was a basin in the corner where water dripped with maddening monotony. Dot took off her hat and coat and hesitatingly began to unhook her dress. Eddie might be sore when he heard that another man had seen her like that. But still, a doctor! Surely a doctor saw so many women that it was kind of flattering oneself to think he'd be fresh.

Dr. Griegman came into the room without being called just as Dot was stepping out of her dress. She did not

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 meet his gaze, but he stood watching her as she walked to a chair and laid her dress upon it. Her little chemise just covered her nudity and it was with a note of desperation in her voice that Dot asked: "Must I take this off, too?"

"If you don't mind," said the doctor with mock deference; then added: "Less time would be wasted if women did at once what they were told to do."

Dot slipped her chemise down over her feet and the doctor slapped the center of the table meaningly.

Dot, frightened and confused, climbed upon it and lay down. He bent over and touched her breasts. Dot turned her face away from him and lay dumb and miserable while he pursued his examination.

At length he said: "Seems no doubt about it. You are certainly pregnant."

He went back to the head of the table again and bent over her. His face was very close to her now.

"Sure you're married?" he asked.

Dot nodded. There was a lump of anger and fright in her throat.

"I like to help little girls out," he said. "Little single girls."

His hands were adventurous and heavy. Dot stiffened beneath their touch.

"I'm married," she said, dully.

"Too bad," he said. "Fifty dollars is a lot of money."

Dot jumped to a sitting posture preparatory to getting down from the table. The doctor put an arm around her for assistance and captured a breast in one of his hands as he did so.

"This is a good time to be indiscreet," he suggested.

Dot reached for her chemise and dress, and the doctor instantly became professional.

"You want to attend to that soon," he said. "It's in its

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 second month. Give me a ring and make an appointment if you decide to have an operation. Bring your husband or a friend with you."

He retreated into the other room, and Dot hurried into her hat and coat. As she passed him on the way out he said: "That will be five dollars for the examination."

Dot only had two dollars and a quarter with her; so he took that.

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lay on the sofa with a blanket drawn up to her ears. Funny how chilly and sick a woman could feel, once she knew she had a good excuse. Eddie sat over near the window turning the pages of a radio magazine with no great eagerness. There was an air of determined depression about the apartment and its two occupants.

Once Eddie spoke. "Want me to get you something?"

Dot shook her head. What could he get her? She didn't want anything. She was too miserable. Downstairs a Victrola began to play "Burning Sands" by the Whiteman Orchestra. People were probably feeling in good spirits down there. The woman who kept the apartment probably hadn't been to see Dr. Griegman. Dot cast a glance at Eddie. Suppose she told him. She smiled a little. What good would it do her to have Dr. Griegman's nose broken? Eddie hadn't cared about her having to undress. He seemed to know that she would have to, but if she had told him the rest— Well, she couldn't, because he certainly would make an attempt to clean up the dirty office, using the doctor for a mop. Then he would be arrested. Men made things so difficult. Because he would do this and be arrested, Dot couldn't tell him of the doctor's unpleasant habits; consequently she couldn't give him a good reason for not wanting to go to Griegman again.

At first she had hoped to gain time by mentioning the price of the operation. Eddie had looked worried but not baffled. He said he felt sure his boss would advance him fifty dollars and that he could repay him five dollars a week.

Dot closed her eyes wearily. One had one's choice be-

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 tween going to that dirty office and being mercilessly pawed or submitting to the unbearable pain of childbirth. The second way seemed by far the more desirable, perhaps because it was a delayed punishment while the other was directly upon her. Whether that was the reason or not, Dot preferred the natural course; but then there would be Eddie looking gloomy and blue. This time next week it would be over, and they would be abie to talk to each other again and go to the movies and laugh. There is no law that can stop a woman from having a baby once Nature has given her the opportunity, but Dot doubted that any woman had ever had one without her husband's sanction. It would indeed be over in a week from now, for Eddie would continue to look dismal until the possibility of his being a father had passed. She would go as soon as Eddie got the fifty dollars. Too bad he didn't want a baby. She would be able to face the unbelievable agony of which Maude had spoken if he were only with her. But he wasn't. They weren't allies in the crisis. He was far off somewhere thinking his own thoughts, probably calling her a fool for having got into this mess. She would go back to Dr. Griegman, and he, for the small sum of fifty dollars, would put Eddie back in a good humor again. She turned wearily on the couch, and Eddie looked up at her.

Poor kid! Trying to make up her mind. Well, she'd have to come to a decision by herself. A man would have a hell of a nerve to tell her to go ahead and have the baby. It was her job to bear the pain, her job to tend the little thing for years to come. What right had a man to say what she should do?

Advice in the opposite direction was an impossibility. It was murder as Eddie saw it, murder to snuff out the little germ of life that flickered so uncertainly, that little germ that grew to be a kid in overalls with a dirty face

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 who asked for pennies and was proud of his Daddy. Still, some women died bringing the little fellows here. Oh, God, why was it so hard? Why did a guy have to see the picture of Dottie cold and white beside a vision of a kid who'd be called Junior? Oh, it was her battle. He couldn't help, and she was so little and scared-looking. She seemed to think that he was sore about something. He wished that he could explain what he felt. If he could only tell her just why he kept quiet. Words. He needed words again. And well-chosen, capable words are scarce, north of Central Park.

The bell rang. Eddie got up and went to the door. Dot raised herself to a sitting position and endeavored to look less sick-hearted.

Eddie opened the door. Edna Driggs stood outside.

"Oh," said Eddie, and leaving the door open, walked back to his chair.

Edna closed the door behind her and came into the living-room.

"Hello," she said, and seeing Dot swathed in a blanket, added quickly: "What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Just lying down."

Edna sat down on the couch beside Dot. "I was worried about you," she said. "It's nearly two weeks since I heard from you."

Dot smiled a smile, sadly lacking in gayety. "Oh, you'd have heard from me," she said, "only I didn't think you'd be much help."

"What's the matter?"

"I'm pregnant."

"Well, what do you want help for?"

Eddie had recovered his magazine and had apparently discovered an intensely interesting article. His head was bent low over the book, and he seemed utterly oblivious of the conversation between the two women.

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 "I don't want to have a baby," said Dot. "What do you do in a case like that?"

"You have it anyway," said Edna. "And when you see it you're ready to kill the person who says you didn't want it."

Edna got up and removed her hat and coat. There was in her air the manner of one who sees that she is needed.

"Lots of women don't have them," said Dot.

"Slackers," Edna returned. "Dames who'd shoot their fingers off to evade going to war if they were men." Edna reseated herself on the couch and waited for Dot to speak.

Dot said nothing. She was not anxious to debate the pro and con of birth control. She perceived instantly that the kind of help that she wanted would not be forthcoming from this quarter, and she was ready to let the matter drop.

"How do you feel?" Edna asked after a time.

"Fair. I'm worried, of course."

"What are you worried about? Why don't you want to have a baby?"

Eddie looked up from his intensely interesting article. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but the impression passed, and he returned to his reading.

"Well," said Dot, "for one thing—"

For one thing what? She looked pleadingly up into Edna's waiting eyes. What were some of the reasons for abortion? You simply couldn't say, "Eddie doesn't want a baby." Edna would probably hate him if she knew that. To say that she herself didn't want one was absurd. Edna would make short work of that objection.

"We'd like a little more money before we have one," said Dot timidly.

She cast a frightened glance at Eddie. Would he be angry at this attack on his earning capacity? If so, Edna's reply must surely have restored his good humor.

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 "Crazy Kid," Edna laughed, easily. "You have plenty. You go to shows and dances and you dress yourself up snappy for your evenings out, don't you? Well, there'll be no shows and dances with a wee one to mind, and the money'll go on him. So there you are. What are you going to name it?"

Dot shook her head slowly. Wee one. What a cute expression. How descriptive of a gurgling elfin little thing that clings warmly to you and searches for bright objects to fix a wavering, unsure glance upon. Wee one. Dot continued to shake her head. It was not so much a gesture of negation now as it was the action of a person whose mind is occupied with melancholy thoughts.

"It will never be born," she said.

A smile had appeared on Edna's face, such as a salesman wears when he has at length overridden a customer's prejudice against his article. Now at Dot's words the smile vanished. It was as though Edna realized for the first time, that Dot was deadly serious.

"But, Honey, what are you going to do?" she asked.

"I guess I'll have to have an operation."

Edna looked at Eddie. She was trying to figure how the land lay. Who was the birth-control advocate, Eddie or Dot? If it were Dot, all was well, but in the event of its being Eddie. ..

"Operations of that kind cost a lot of money," said Edna.

"Eddie can raise it," Dot replied. She was beginning to see that she alsowas having a tussle. There was not one good argument that she could find against having a baby. Edna would fight her into a corner. Her sole reason was Eddie's doleful air. And that reason she could not give. What would Edna think of a man who didn't want a child?

"Look, Dot, I'm not a gushy sort of person, but you

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 haven't any women in your life that think as much of you as I do. Sue and Maude and those girls are just companions. I'm a friend. Do you see the difference? Can't you tell me the real reason why you don't want a baby?"

Obviously, Edna had no self-consciousness about the silent blue-suited figure in the corner. She was talking to Dot, and she was desperately in earnest. Dot saw the earnestness shining through her eyes. It made Edna suddenly beautiful. Dot had a feeling that perhaps her mother would have talked so. She knew that Sue Cudahy in this position would have asked Edna just what business it was of hers. But curiously, at that moment, it seemed Edna's business. But for that silent blue-suited figure whom Dot had not forgotten, she might have told Edna that Eddie— But it was not to be thought of, and Edna had to have an answer.

"I don't—I don't want the pain of it," she said. Her eyes turned away from Edna and fixed themselves on space.

"Oh, Dot, you little fool."

Eddie laid his magazine down with surprising quietness. "Why is she a little fool?" he asked.

Edna was momentarily taken aback, so completely had she forgotten his existence.

"Oh, Eddie, she didn't mean anything by that." Dot was large-eyed and worried. An argument? Now? Just when she felt that she couldn't bear one more vexation.

"I meant that Dot was a little fool to consider the pain so seriously," Edna explained. "But every girl does that at first."

"Well, then, don't blame Dot for it," said Eddie.

"No, but you see," Edna went on, "that one night when the baby comes might be pretty bad, but it is gone in a few hours and you have your baby."

Nobody said anything for a minute. Dot was consider-

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 ing Edna's "pretty bad" against Maude's "unbearable agony."

"Let her do what she wants about it," said Eddies "It's her business."

Edna got up and walked toward him. "Look here, Eddie, sheEddie," she [sic] said, "you're a married man and you have a job and you can vote, but I'll be damned if I think you're responsible. Do you mean to say that you'd have her considering an illegal operation and not try to talk her out of it or at least let somebody who cares about her try?"

"It's her business," said Eddie.

"It's the business of somebody who's had a baby to tell her what it's really like. Nine-tenths of the girls and the young married women in America haven't the faintest notion what it's like. How can they have? If they'd let somebody tell them they wouldn't be so scared."

Dot's interest in the whole affair made her forget her worry regarding Eddie and Edna.

"I saw Maude McLaughlin today," she said. "I—I think she's had a baby. She said it was unbelievable agony."

Edna smiled coldly. "I've heard people say that about tonsil operations," she said. "I had a baby and I am ready to go through it again if I remarry."

"Dot's not built like a war-horse," remarked Eddie.

"Disregarding the personal side of your remark," said Edna, "I would advise you to learn something before trying to discuss obstetrics. You don't know anything about Dot bearing a child."

"And I don't want to know," Eddie growled.

"Oh, you don't want a baby?"

Dot jumped ahead of the retort she saw Eddie framing. "He's worried for me," she said.

"He is like hell," Edna cried. "If he was, he wouldn't let you have that operation. There are only five or six

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 doctors in New York who do it without ever having a comeback from the patient, and those men charge from a hundred and fifty up."

"What do you mean, comeback?" asked Dot.

"Blood poison for one thing, and there's a lot of other things that happen, too."

Eddie struck a match and lit his cigarette.

Great tears streamed down Dot's face. "Oh, God," she said. "What can I do?"

Edna turned to Eddie. "See here, Kid, don't be too smart. Just because you don't like me isn't a reason for not using my knowledge. If you're worried about Dot, remember this: there's pain and danger in either direction. One way you're dealing with a good doctor, and nature is on your side. The other way you've got a guy that couldn't make a living the way other doctors do, and you've got nature fighting you. Besides, the last way you have no baby, you're out fifty or seventy-five dollars, and in case you have a religion, you've sinned against it."

"Aw, tell it to Dot," said Eddie.

"Aren't you interested?" asked Edna.

Then Eddie called Edna a name which makes up in venomous intent what it lacks in accuracy. It is guaranteed to leave a wife and her well-meaning friend in consternation. Eddie picked up his hat and walked out of the apartment.

Dot's tears fell faster. "What else can happen?" sho sobbed. "I'll bet he doesn't come back all night."

"Don't cry. I'll stay till he comes back."

"Oh, Edna, you mean well, but it's all wrong. I can't have a baby, and please leave me alone about it."

"No, Dot, I can't. I must convince you that an illegal operation isn't as easy as it sounds. Maude's a coward, Dot. Honest to God she is. It's not a pleasure, but it isn't so bad as some women make out. Listen, Dot, I went with

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 a girl to have one of those operations, and I'm sure I didn't have as much pain with Floyd as she had with—"

"Oh, she didn't have ether?"

"No."

"Well, it's easy with ether."

"Yes, very easy. You're deathly sick at your stomach, and sometimes the retching strains you, and you have a nice time with your insides."

Dot dried her eyes. She knew it was a futile gesture.

A half hour passed without a word being said. Occasionally Dot patted her eyes with her handkerchief. As nearly as she could make out, she was much worse off than she had been earlier that day. Then she had not considered Dr. Griegman's talent dangerous. She had merely been revolted by the man. Now she had discovered that blood poison, death, and a score of unknown dangers awaited her in that grimy office. Still, she had to go. Eddie did not want a baby. Surely that much could be seen by anybody. If he only wanted one! How gamely she could face the months of waiting and the terrible climax if he were beside her choosing bootees, picking out a name, counting days.

Before conversation was resumed between Dot and Edna, Eddie returned. He walked into the room with a sullen air of defiance.

"Well?" he asked, turning to Edna, "have you decided on the baby's godfather?"

"Please don't be sore, Eddie," Edna begged. "Between us we have Dot a nervous wreck."

"Between us," Eddie barked. "For the love of God, you fixed things so she hasn't any chance. It's enough to get anybody nervous. You got her dying no matter what she does."

"No, Eddie," Edna said, "I haven't. I merely want to take some of the bloom off your idea that operations like

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 that are a cinch. Do you still want her to be operated on after what I told you about burn doctors and all?"

"It's up to her."

Suddenly a climax had been reached in the scene. Two pairs of eyes turned upon Dot. The two people in the world who cared for her were awaiting her answer. She was startled by the abruptness of the move. The decision which she had reached again and again now seemed foolish. After all, it was her body that was to be the battle-field. She had been wrong. It was her place to do what she pleased, not to stand by and wait for Eddie to pass judgment. Deciding in favor of Griegman when every impulse cried against it had been absurd. She felt terribly happy and peaceful as she said, "I'll have the baby."

And then she looked at Eddie's face. It was a mask of gloom and despair. She had chosen wrong, perhaps, but she would stand or fall by that decision.

She had no way of knowing that Eddie had just seen himself arguing with a conductor that Junior was only three years old, and that then Junior, conductor, and car had faded into space as a vision of Dot, cold and stiff on a hospital bed, had come into his mind.

He smiled sourly. "Satisfied, Edna?" he asked. "These women who want to be Jesus Christ sure do beat me."

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wasn't possible to face nine months cooped up in a three-room apartment with a person so depressingly silent as Eddie. She knew what his silence meant. He was sore clean through. He didn't want a baby. She would often look up at him and find his eyes fixed upon her, and the expression in them was one of terror. He dreaded the thought of a baby who would cry in the night, who would take nine-tenths of her time, who would consume the money they had used in dance halls and chop suey restaurants. That's what his terrified expression meant. What else could it mean?

She couldn't face months of this. She had to talk to him, try and straighten things out. They had to face the future together.

She was lying on the bed. Fifteen minutes before, she had been violently ill. Her stomach had become a petulant, complaining beast that had not retained more than a slice of toast in three weeks. The odor of coffee would bring on a sudden weakness. Lamb chops acted the same way. Dot tried to laugh at herself, but it was not easy with Eddie pacing the floor, cursing under his breath. Of course it wasn't pleasant for him, but still, Dot reflected, it was her stomach that reeled with nausea. She could tell him that, but her desire was to bring them closer together again, not to begin arguments that could end only in further distance between them. That had become her aim—to see Eddie in a good humor again.

"Eddie," she said, "I don't want a baby, you know."

She saw him look up from his paper. He was stretched crosswise on the bed with his chin resting on his hand.

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 The paper lay spread before him. Once Dot had kept newspapers off the bed because of the print rubbing against her immaculate spread. It didn't seem to matter so much any more.

"Don't you?" he asked. "I'll be glad when you get to a decision."

"Oh, I'm going to have it," she said, hastily, "but I just wanted you to know that I feel just as you feel. I don't want it either."

Eddie scowled but said nothing.

"You see," Dot plunged on, "it's like this, you have to use common sense. Edna talks too much, but she knows more than we do."

Eddie looked back at the newspaper. Dot could not see his face. She wished she could; maybe he was glad to know that she didn't want the kid either. Surely this ought to be a bond between them to renew their old companionship.

It seemed to be working. Eddie's hand reached out and found hers. He squeezed it tightly.

"Of course, I'll be kind to the kid," Dot added. "But, Eddie, I'll never care as much about it as I care for you."

Eddie turned a page noisily. "You'll be a damn funny mother if you don't care a hell of a sight more for it," he remarked.

"But I won't. I doubt that I'll care for it much at all."

"Aw, shut up," said Eddie, pulling his hand away. "What do you have to talk about the kid for anyway? It'll get here soon enough."

"Well, I gotta talk about it," said Dot, "because I need a doctor."

"Yeah, next July," said Eddie.

"No, now."

Eddie sat up on the bed. "What's the matter?" he asked.

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 "Nothing, only it's done nowadays. Edna said so, and Maude said so. If you get what they call prenatal care, you fix it so that you run hardly any chance at all of an accident. See, the doctor looks at you often all through the months, and he can see how you're getting along. He tells you just what to do and all. He puts you on a good diet and everything, see. And he can hear the baby's heart beat, and he can tell how the baby's getting along, too. If we spend a lot of money on this thing we don't want a dead baby, do we?" Dot giggled a little. Those were awful words. Dead baby. You had to laugh a little to help say them.

"What the hell are you always laughing at?" asked Eddie.

Funny he hadn't thought of that before. Some babies didn't live. They came here without the necessary spark that would make them into little fellows that would get into fights in the back lot. How did a person stand it if, after months of hoping and imagining things about him, the little thing just arrived and disappeared without ever having let you hear him say "Daddy."

"I ain't always laughing," said Dot. "I ain't got so much to laugh about. What do you think about getting a doctor?"

"Sure, get one. If everybody else has them, I suppose you ought to."

"It's awful expensive," said Dot.

"How much?"

"Two hundred dollars."

"Are you kidding?"

"No."

Eddie got up and went over to the chiffonier for a cigarette. "Jeeze, that's a lot of money," he said.

"Yes," Dot agreed, "it is. Some doctors do it a lot cheaper, but I am thinking of a certain doctor."

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text:
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 The AARO Director reported to Congress that the majority of cases in AARO's holdings have ordinary explanation and that AARO has not seen any evidence that any of these cases represent extraterrestrial technology.

'Of all the reports that AARO investigated and analyzed, none represent extraterrestrial or off-world technology. A small percentage of cases have potentially anomalous characteristics or concerning characteristics. AARO has kept Congress fully and currently informed of its findings. AARO's research continues on these cases.'

Foreign and Academic Investigatory Efforts

AARO reviewed seven other UAP investigatory panels and programs sponsored by a U.S. university, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France. Of these efforts, one unofficial report from a Canadian government effort in the early 1950s claimed UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin, and the program director claimed he was in contact with aliens. This position appeared to reflect the opinions of the director of the effort and was not endorsed or supported by the Canadian government.

Stanford University's Sturrock Panel (1998) found no convincing evidence for the extraterrestrial origin of UFO/UAP.

The United Kingdom's Flying Saucer Working Party (1950–1951) concluded that "flying saucers did not exist."

Canada's Sky Project (2023) is currently ongoing, and the program will release its findings in 2024.

Canada's Project Second Storey (1952–1954), an advisory committee that advised the government, never reached any significant conclusions.

Canada's Project Magnet (1950–1954) was run by Department of Transport engineer Wilbert B. Smith. Smith assessed that UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin and that they flew by magnetism. Smith believed he was in personal contact with extraterrestrial beings through telepathy and "tensor beams." Smith, in an interview as early as 1961, claimed that in 1952, the USAF lent him a piece of a UFO to study. He also claimed it was composed of magnesium orthosilicate. The Canadian government closed the project, saying that there were no definitive results from the research. Smith admitted that his beliefs concerning UFOs were his alone and not the government's official position.

The French government sponsored three comprehensive investigatory programs: Groupe d'Etude et d'Information sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés (GEPAN, 1977–1987), Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes de Rentrées Atmosphériques (SEPRA, 1988–2004), and a new version called Groupe d'Etudes et d'Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés (GEIPAN) that stood up in 2005. When it dissolved, SERPA concluded that the vast majority of cases


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 "Who?"

"His name is Dr. Stewart. He delivered Floyd. Two hundred dollars is the cheapest he'll do it. He usually gets five hundred, but Edna says she thinks he'd do it for two hundred for people like us."

"Kind-hearted, ain't he?" Eddie remarked sourly. "Two hundred dollars. What makes him such an expensive guy?"

"Oh, Edna says he's wonderful. He's so smart and so nice. He tells you what to eat and keeps the baby's weight down so the pain won't be so awful."

"That sounds good," said Eddie.

"And he gives you such good care and all that there's very little chance of anything going wrong."

Dot's cheeks had become very pink with her eagerness. She leaned toward Eddie, and her voice took on a coaxing note. "Look, Eddie, you make forty dollars a week, and we've got a lot of time for saving up. You don't have to pay the doctor a cent until after the baby is here. I've figured it all out, how we can manage. It's worth it to have me and the kid safe, ain't it?"

"You don't have to nag me to let you have decent care," Eddie said. "Get this highway robber if you want him, but I'm glad you got it figured out how we can manage, because I don't see it at all."

Dot said no more about it. She could have talked all night, only she thought it best to leave well enough alone; for Eddie, despite a sudden restlessness that had seized him, looked more contented and friendly than he had in weeks. Dot congratulated herself on good generalship. She had convinced him that the kid was just as much of a nuisance to her as to him, and that had made him feel more kindly toward her.

Dr. Stewart made his first call on Dot three days later. He was a medium-sized, brown-haired man with an in-

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 clination toward obesity. He was still under forty, but he was not the type of man who makes a woman yearn for a more elderly doctor. He was pleasant, not formidably professional, and very conscientious. He had a little boy of his own. Dot found that out at once.

Dr. Stewart did not seem willing to base his diagnosis on Dot's symptoms alone. He asked for a sheet. Wonderingly Dot brought him one that was fresh from the laundry. Dr. Stewart told her the position he wished her to take, lying crosswise on the bed. An examination followed, in which the sheet was used solely for the psychological effect it would have on Dot. One couldn't feel exposed with yards of sheet billowing about one. She thought of Dr. Griegman's crude professional manner.

At length Dr. Stewart stood up straight and said: "Well, you're going to have a baby."

It didn't seem the same as when Griegman had verified her suspicions. In Dr. Stewart's words lay congratulations, respect, and a hint of forthcoming glory. A sudden mist of terrifying, heart-bursting happiness descended on Dot. A baby. It suddenly seemed new and very, very wonderful. She wished she could run to Eddie and say: "What do you think, darling, we're going to have a baby!"

Dr. Stewart had returned to the living-room and was awaiting her there. He was sitting in Eddie's chair, smoking comfortably.

Dot came and sat on the couch. She wanted to ask him a great many questions, but she didn't know where to start. Presently he began to speak. He told her about conception, of which she had only the vaguest idea. He described what the child was like now, how it would be a month later. He traced the little life through the months till it would lie, lobster-red and squinty-eyed—but beautiful to its mother—in an ivory-white bassinet.

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 "I hope you're not thinking of an abortion," he said. "A nasty, corrupt practice which has a bad effect on the woman who uses it."

"Oh, no," said Dot. "I want my baby."

"That's fine." Dr. Stewart smiled pleasantly. "You'll have it probably around the middle of July."

"Yes, it takes nine months, doesn't it?" said Dot, wishing to show that she was not an idiot about obstetrics.

Dr. Stewart nodded, but with reserve. "We figure it ten lunar months," he said.

"Oh, ten months?"

"Ten lunar months."

"Then it isn't nine months after all?"

"Well, it's ten lunar months."

"Oh, I see," said Dot, brightly, but she didn't. She was quiet for a few seconds; then: "I'd like to have you for the confinement," she said shyly.

Dr. Stewart seemed absorbed in his cigarette. "Yes, Mrs. Driggs spoke of that when she phoned me," he said. "I understood that she had spoken about the price and so forth to you."

"Yes—she said that you could—that you would—two hundred dollars."

Dr. Stewart nodded. "That means," he said, "that I will be here once every two weeks, deliver the baby, and see you every day for two weeks after."

Dot thought that would be very nice.

"I will be here again two weeks from today," Dr. Stewart said. He got up and put on his coat. He reached for his hat and bag.

"Sorry you're so sick at your stomach," he said. "But that condition will clear up soon. Try gelatine. You might be able to hold on to that for a while."

He smiled again and began the descent of the stairs. Dot held her door open until she heard the big downstairs

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 door close with a rushing thud. Then she went back to the bedroom and lay down to think it all out.

She was going to have her baby despite Eddie's grouches and everything else. She was going to have her baby. She felt that the whole undertaking had been moved to another plane. There was somebody looking after her child's well-being now. A good doctor was going to listen to her baby's heartbeats. Again and again her mind went over what Dr. Stewart had told her. "Your baby," he had said. Her baby. Oh, dear God, if there was only some one who could share her delight, some one who cared enough for that feeble little glow of life to picture it a year, two years from now, when it would be a little boy who could say "Mommie." Too bad Eddie didn't want it.

She had to cool her enthusiasm against his return. He had just begun to accept her again, and excitement over the kid that was coming to break up his night's rest would surely alienate him. She dressed and went around the corner to Dyckman Street. Eddie's supper had to be ready for him. Not that he had ever said anything about it, but Dot thought that a man's supper ought to really be ready for him.

She bought a pound of round steak and a can of corn. She had potatoes and butter and coffee and sugar and milk. Oh, bread. A small loaf of bread. How about breakfast? Were there eggs?

She forgot about the eggs, for suddenly a dreadful wave of dizziness swept over her. She dropped into a chair and watched the world go black before her eyes. The voice of the grocery clerk sounded very far away.

"Let me get you a drink."

She got home somehow or other. She remembered climbing the four flights of stairs. It seemed that never would she have her bundles safe on the kitchen table and her body limp on the sofa. Somehow she managed. And

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 Eddie's supper was ready when he got home. Dot ate two Uneeda biscuits and talked about Dr. Stewart.

Eddie listened without comment. Twice she almost gave herself away. It's hard to be depressed and gloomy sometimes, even to please one's husband.

Eddie ate his dinner with scarcely a word to Dot. He was thinking of an utterly stupid error he had made that day in repairing a radio set. He wondered how he had come to do that. Oh, well, a fellow's mind was apt to wander sometimes. Mr. Williams had ridden him hard about it. He'd have to see that it didn't happen again. Not that it wasn't excusable once in a blue moon, and not that Williams wasn't fully aware that Eddie did know radio; but still Eddie couldn't help but think that this would be a hell of a time to lose his job.

The incident made Eddie marvel a little at the trustfulness of a woman. Gosh, Dot didn't know that he was a crackajack radio repair man who could always get a job. She was figuring on him to see her through her confinement with the best of care. She depended on forty dollars a week. Suppose he wasn't so good at the job, suppose he was a guy Williams could can without missing, suppose he couldn't connect with another job fast. She'd have to have the kid brought by charity doctors. She wasn't even imagining that. She was trusting him, depending on him. Women were funny.

Since Dot's stomach had become so sensitive, Eddie had taken her place as official dishwasher. It had been his own suggestion, and he was so proud of having summoned the words that had brought about the arrangement that he sulked each night when Dot picked up a towel to do the drying. He wanted to do it all, and if she couldn't see for herself that he was willing, then she was too dumb to worry about; so Eddie sprinkled soap flakes in the dishpan and scowled.

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