"... the romanticism had faded: without hot water, the baby cried, without fresh food, he cried, and without sleep, his parents, behind doors or late at night, they cried too.
Shivering on the step with a blanket wrapped around him, Jones told Betty; I'm sick, he said, I'm sick and they say I might die.
She stood up.
I thought I heard the baby cry, she said, but he was asleep, and they both knew it, so she sat back down and took his hand.
I'm only young, Betty, he said, I'm only young and now I'll never be old.
Now that's not, necessarily, entirely true, she said quietly, because, she thought, to look at us, who would have thought we were so young? He started to cry and it embarassed them both. She moved to touch him, but hesitated. There was nothing she could do but live; and nothing he could do but die, and nothing that the baby could do but grow up thinking he was invincible until he didn't, and by that stage, he was as good as dead, anyway. No, she decided, pulling out a cigarette, she would live."
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