Chapter 4

The trip to Chicago was long, but filled with exhilarating and blissful dreams. They were dreams of the unbelievable night I had just lived, but also dreams of nights to come with Ron. I felt a twinge of sadness that I would have to keep the last night in San Antonio a secret from Ron; he would never be able to accept it; but the twinge was overwhelmed by the soaring joy I felt in my life.

I climbed off the train in Chicago only to find to my astonishment that I was indoors, in a huge hall. This place was like nothing I had ever imagined. It seemed like there were millions of people going in all directions at once. I looked around in bewilderment, and then I heard his voice.

"Jan, over here!"

How he found me I'll never know, but my knight had rescued me again. He told me we'd have to take two buses to get home, and I groaned, thinking of half-hour waits at bus stops. Chicago astounded me once again. We had no more than dragged my luggage to the bus stop when a bus pulled up, and Ron said it was ours. How lucky could we get? Then when we got off that bus, the other one we needed was there in less than a minute.

Ron shrugged. "I know it's hard to believe, but it seems like it's always that way here. I've never seen so many buses."

We were soon home, though it was only a walkup third floor garret. I didn't care a bit, because by that time Ron had told me excitedly that, yes, he would be home almost every night.

We only stayed in that first apartment a month, then found a much nicer place. It wasn't the place that really mattered, though. It was that Ron and I were together. We did everything together. Every day he was free was a new exploration, and every night was a honeymoon.

Amazingly, when Ron graduated from his class he got assigned to the school as an instructor, and we settled into semi-permanent life in The Second City, the most amazing place I have ever lived.

We got two secondhand bicycles, and rode them everywhere in good weather: five miles to the Quaker Meeting House and the Co-op, twelve miles up along the lake shore, ten miles back home from the Near North Side. When the weather was bad we took the El and the buses. But always we went together; always we were in love; always we were happy.

Until there came a time when the army sent Ron away to Minneapolis for a two-week class. I must have cried for two days when he left, then just curled up in a ball in bed. I couldn't sleep, or think, or do anything. It was like the bad old days from before. I just didn't care anymore. I didn't care about anything. I didn't care if I lived or died.

It must have been some time in the middle of the second week when the phone rang. I didn't have the energy or the will to answer it. I just let it ring. It finally stopped, and it slowly seeped into my brain that it might have been Ron calling. I should have answered; I couldn't understand why I didn't, but somehow I just couldn't. Sometime later it started ringing again. I listened to it ring six times, and hoped it would stop, but it didn't. I finally forced myself to pick up the receiver.

It wasn't Ron; it was Sergeant Nelson. He was calling to tell me when Ron would get back. I'm not sure what I said, or what he said to me, but I remember crying. As if he were an angel, Sergeant Nelson showed up at my door that night. He was soooo gooood to me. I invited him back the next night, and for a dozen stolen afternoons in the months that followed, but that's another story.