She was still waiting on her “benefits,” checking the mailbox every day after several visits to the local veterans’ bureau. Because of the nature of the tragedy, there was runaround with obtaining Billy’s death certificate from the coroner. She had run around for the couple of days it took to exhaust her bereavement time. The first time she had gone to the veterans’ bureau, she was missing the children’s birth certificates. The next time she went back, she found out someone had erred on the last digit in Billy’s social security number. The final time, which would be the last time she could skip out on work for the long wait in the office, she was told to wait for the proper forms in the mail. Everyone in the building knew her predicament; even the whores who sometimes turned tricks under the stairs while everyone looked the other way wouldn’t have had the heart to confiscate a check bearing her name. She was waiting for cold weather to use it as an excuse to spend a full day at the bureau to straighten the matter out. But the cold was several months away, and already her cabinets seemed to rest in a perpetual state of being starved for attention. If only she had taken advantage of the offer she received at Harlem Hospital after birthing her daughter. “Complete, total, and complimentary sterilization, to your own economic gain,” a pink nurse had explained to her as the hell of labor took over her mind. But she wouldn’t be bothered with signing forms whose words she was too drowsy to read. In misty Laundromats and crowded train cars, she had heard several women whispering about doing this exact thing—no more children no matter how much they enjoyed their men. And now how she wished she had stayed alert long enough to sign.