[question] I don’t know, did I see three girls or did I know from reading and being told about the three girls he helped before my sister. I don’t know anymore, because it is hard to separate what I really remember after all these years. I feel like I saw it. There were three girls, and there was Sam helping each one to step up on the sill, one at a time, like getting into a carriage, and there was fire all around them, coming out of the window, and he was helping each one so gentle, so kind, that’s what he was like, he would always have the nice words to make a plain girl feel pretty, and each girl, she would get calm when he gave her his hand to get her steady on the window ledge, and then he would let go each one of them, and each girl would just fall away, and then the next girl would get up in her place, and they were just falling out that window, with Sam helping them.

[question] I never thought to jump, I have to say. But I wasn’t burning up. I think if you are burning up, you want to jump out into the fresh air, and draw another breath, and save yourself for another few seconds, so you can have one more breath of air. It just seems like human nature, if you have the choice. You take the chance, even if it isn’t any kind of real chance, because you can. You jump and you hope.

[question] I am nearly done with telling you what happened, but I got to say about my sister and what happened next. Sam goes to help the next girl get up on the sill, the fourth girl, he gives her his hand and helps her get steady, and I see it is my sister, she is there with him in the window. He helps her up, and then she waits for him and what does he do but he gets up onto the ledge next to her, and he put his hand on the side of the window, to get steady, and you can see the flames right behind him, coming out the window next to him, and then he takes her arms and he puts them around his neck, like he can save her like if they were swimming in the ocean, and he puts his arms around my sister and they kiss each other, and then they jump, the two people I have in the world, they jump out of the world.

[question] What do you ask? What do you think I felt? How could you ask such an ignorant question? I have just told you if you were listening. Maybe you listen again when you sit with your tape recorder and hear my voice after I am dead. Stop. You don’t have to say something sweet to me, I know I won’t live forever.

[question] What happened after that I don’t remember so much. I woke up in the hospital where they took me from the street, and I am burned, and I am in pain from my ribs when I cough from the smoke I have breathed, and everything is being done for me to help me, and everyone is nice and gentle, and they tell me I am so lucky to be alive, that’s what they all say to me, they say to me that Pauline is dead but I am so lucky, but I am all alone and that is what I know. I will have the baby and I need to stay alive for that, I have to do that, what choice do I have? It is too late for any choice. And I am all alone in the world. So this is what happened.